#COSI

This short blog is a challenge!! Firstly for me to write and secondly to you, my fellow coaches! It is made more so as I have just joined the team for an internship over the next 9-12 months. So for those that have not seen my introduction blog, my name is Steve Eversfield and I am starting the final year of a MSc in Performance Coaching.

So, here’s the challege…

We all talk about continuing professional development [aka Coach Education], but how many of us actually study our art (coaching) outside of that which is expected of us to be qualified to the standards laid down by our respective NGB?

I know full well that the majority of us do our coaching as volunteers. As I write this I have my MSc Internship head on, whilst maintaining a full career as an Army Officer and being the Club Development officer for my local Hockey club. I only say this to highlight that I understand how busy we all are and how beneficial it can be when opportunities or resources are shared.

So what is #COSI?

Well, put simply it is a Culture Of Self Improvement (COSI). COSI forms one of the four aims highlighted within the UK Coaching Framework along with, more appropriately qualified and skilled coaches, a more diverse work force and a better supported workforce. Our intent with #COSI is to help promote this culture within all of us, whilst also considering the ‘supported workforce’ pillar.  We will do this by sharing coaching tips, highlighting interesting articles and suggesting opportunities that help us all move towards excellence and expertise.

The UK Coaching Framework strap line is ‘EXCELLENT COACHING EVERY TIME FOR EVERYONE’. I would suggest we can only achieve that by being the best that we can, at what we do – coach. I’m sure we would all like to learn more about ‘how to coach’ and I don’t mean the technical aspects of our chosen sport, but about the art of coaching or ‘how successful coaches achieve success’, if only we had the time. So this is where we believe that #COSI will fit into our busy schedules. Initially we will highlight some Podcasts that many may find beneficial, can be listened to almost anywhere, and we feel are relevant to some of our CoachingHIOW projects and priorities. In time we will develop our information sharing, be that tweeting podcasts or articles, more blogging or perhaps put on some focus groups and workshops. Perhaps more importantly we should ask; What do you want?

How can we help each other?

Well simple ideas shared through comments here, tweeting comments about Podcasts or articles and suggesting other areas for us all to look at are the key ways we as a coaching network can help each other with our COSI.

So look out for our hashtags; Culture of Self Improvement (#COSI), Disability Coaching Network (#DCN), Talent Coach Academy (#TalentCoachHIOW), Young Coach Academy (#YoungCoachHIOW) and feel free to share the information, your views, and perhaps more importantly your experiences. We try…but know we are not the font of all knowledge, so if you are aware of any good resources, please share them with the coaching community and remember to add #COSI.

Here’s a starter challenge to traditonal coaching.

Steve