Basketball coaches Catherine Millar and John Day started their sporting careers as Active Schools volunteers in Fife. Through the recruitment and development of volunteers like Catherine and John, Active Schools can provide more opportunities for young people to take part in sport and physical activity before school, after school and during lunchtime.
Meet Catherine
Basketball coach Catherine Millar completed 500 volunteer coaching hours and was recognised as the regional and national sportscotland volunteer of the year in 2014/15. Catherine’s UKCC level 1 and 2 was funded by Direct Club Investment (DCI) through sportscotland and she is now community coach at local basketball club Dunfermline Reign and Basketball Scotland U15 girls team manager and assistant coach, which has led to her travelling all over the world.
Meet John
Active Schools offered John many funded training opportunities and a pathway to working with Dunfermline Reign. Whilst coaching, John took up refereeing and became interested in officiating and trained as a basketball referee. His experience led to an opportunity to officiate in the British Basketball League and he toured Britain and Europe refereeing professional games. John is now lead coach of Dunfermline Reign men's team, a post funded through DCI.
The impact
In their role with Dunfermline Reign, Catherine and John now work together with Active Schools to provide regular access to basketball for all. Collectively, John and Catherine have organised primary-schools festivals in Fife with direct links to clubs and have delivered basketball to more than 30 schools each year, providing opportunities for more than 1,000 children.
Find out more
sportscotland works in partnership with all 32 local authorities to invest in and support the Active Schools Network. For more information visit the sportscotland website.
To discover more about DCI and other club programmes visit the clubs section.