NYP TriStars in Ripon, North Yorkshire, are laying the foundations to get more people in the area involved in swim, bike, run as the junior club continues their recovery after the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Andrea McAuslan took over as Chair of NYP TriStars last year and, along with the club’s committee, is leading the club’s development during a latest recruitment drive to get more juniors in Ripon enjoying the benefits of swim, bike, run.
“We did struggle through Covid, but we have an amazing committee who managed to keep everything going and dedicated coaches, so we managed to come out of that challenging period and now we’re looking to build on that to try and build back up to where the club once was in terms of membership,” McAuslan said.
“The last few months have really been about laying the groundwork to be able to present ourselves to the area in the right way, to make sure we have a professional outfit to show people and, with Ripon Triathlon returning this year after missing the last two years, we’re hoping that will also attract some support to the sport in the area.”
The club, which currently has over 55 members aged from 7-16 years, have spent the winter months working hard behind-the-scenes to ensure the club is in the best place possible before their upcoming recruitment drive.
Within the club, they are currently increasing the number of coaches with new coaches currently undertaking their Level 1 course, while the summer training programme has already been devised. As they look to recruit new members, the club has recently launched a new website and have a series of school visits also planned.
They’ve also appointed Olympic champion Jess Learmonth as their patron which Mcauslan hopes will give the club a boost.
“This year we’ve really worked on trying to build the club back and we’ve got a few coaches training at the moment,” McAuslan added. “One of our Level 2 coaches has already written all of our summer programmes for us in advance, so all the coaches can work from one framework instead of us dipping in and out of different sessions each week. We’re hoping that will give the training a lot more structure and will help the kids with their progression and development.
“One of our coaches, Alex Dewar, is a public speaker and an Invictus Games competitor so he’s put a presentation together for us to go into schools and try and get more kids into the sport. We don’t actually have that many children from inside the Ripon area that are actually in the club, quite a lot of the club’s members are from in and around the surrounding villages, so we wanted to try and get more kids involved from in the town.
“We had our first school presentation recently and the plan is to then go into more schools to spread the word as much as we can and to try and reach as many kids in the town as possible.
“We’ve also spoken to Jess Learmonth and she’s kindly agreed to be our patron which is incredibly exciting for us and the whole club. She massively supports grassroots sport and getting more children into sport, so it’s fantastic to have her support.”
Being at the club and seeing the enjoyment of the NYP TriStars juniors has also given McAuslan the motivation to restart her own swim, bike, run journey, including working towards becoming a Level 1 coach.
“Just being down at the pool and seeing what they can do, even the youngsters who are seven and eight years old giving it their all, it really inspires myself to get going again,” McAuslan commented. “I haven’t done triathlon for a few years since having children, so it just motivates you so much to see what they can do.
“We want to spread that through the community, through other kids, but also potentially through into their parents. What can we do with the adult club to encourage parents and adults to get involved, so there’s plenty of ideas coming forward for the future as well once we’ve got this first phase sorted. We want to get as many people as involved to experience the benefits.”
