Angling Coaching Update: Courses for angling guides and the ‘Guide Assured’ qualification for fishing guides

Info about new angling qualifications, the courses and a brand new  ‘Guide Assured’ qualification

By Richard Hadley, Coaching Centre Manager and Lead Safeguarding Officer

Being a coach is rewarding and personally very satisfying. The thrill of helping someone catch their first fish. Remember how good that felt?! Our sport has fairly complex procedures to participate. It’s not like you can just turn a couple of jumpers into goalposts and kick a ball off! That’s where coaching has an important part to play in introducing, and then helping develop anglers on, to whatever their next target is – for example, casting further, more accurately or more often. Who doesn’t need a bit of help with those?

Our Level 1 Angling Support Coach and Level 2 Angling Lead Coach courses remain extremely popular. There are now 800 coaches providing nationwide coverage so no matter where you live, there should be an angling coach nearby.

Being “The RAC of Angling” means our new Check-a Coach tool gives anybody the reassurance to immediately check coach credentials on their phone and see if a coach is qualified and licensed. We will be promoting this safeguarding resource to schools, community groups, councils, Police Forces and the angling community.

COMING SOON: Level 3 Angling Development Coach qualification – support for coaches/anglers to achieve even higher levels of competence
Here’s an exciting development too and one that I know is going to be really popular – we are introducing a brand new ‘Level 2 Guide Assured’ qualification and licencing process to support angling guides – finally, a qualification to endorse those that want to guide a fellow angler and pass on their knowledge, expertise and understanding of ‘where to go, what to use and how to use it’. That not only deals with those three well-known blockers to angling participation, it also covers a fourth “who to go with”!

The cost of living is putting pressure on everyone right now, so I’m relieved to let you know we’ve significantly reduced three significant barriers to attending courses: time, distance, and price – all of which can hit us in the pocket:

1. Level 1 Angling Support Coach and Level 2 Angling Lead Coach courses can now be done in online/blended format
2. The Environment Agency will provide Coach Bursary Funding to lower upfront costs when balanced by the newly qualified coach delivering 10 voluntary sessions. This agreement re-invests fishing rod licence income into angling in return for providing free coaching – that’s a great deal!

All the latest courses can be found at www.anglingtrust.net/coaching.
COMING SOON: Level 3 Angling Development Coach qualification – support for coaches/anglers to achieve even higher levels of competence.

Richard

Richard Hadley
Angling Trust Coaching Centre Manager and Lead Safeguarding Officer
07720 974811 | [email protected]