Serbian Coaches Association held a two day coaching conference in Belgrade from February 5th to February 6th 2009. Speakers talked about numerous issues facing coaches and discussed ways in which athlete training could be improved as well as reflected on the experiences from the past and from the Beijing Olympics. Guest speakers included the Serbian Minister of Youth and Sports and members of the Serbian Olympic Committee. Both vice presidents of the European Athletic Coaches Association, dr Dane Korica and professor Peter Bonov as well as the EACA Member Website Services Manager, Igor Radisic, held their own lectures and spoke before a large crowd of over 100 coaches from Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and other regional countries.

Serbian Coaches Association organized an international seminar for coaches at Zlatar, Serbia. The coaches discussed issues in Serbian Athletics and the ways to improve coaching and selection of young athletes. The coaches were also presented with Serbia's athletic program, goals and expectations in 2009.

The speakers among others included Dr Julian Karabiberov from Bulgaria, dr Dane Korica, vice president of the EACA and Igor Radisic, EACA Member Website Services Manager. Our EACA representatives at the seminar, Dr Dane Korica and Igor Radisic spoke about the Glasgow Conference and about the issues facing European athletic coaches. The Coaching renaissance brought in a lot of interest from the coaches and the Coaches Charter was hailed once again by all Serbian coaches as the right step forward in improving the status of coaches throughout Europe. The EACA website also occupied the coaches attention as they were presented with a plethora of opportunities and resources available for members at the EACA website.

The 2008 EACA Conference, 31 October – 2 November, was an outstanding success.  305 delegates from 32 countries (26 European) made this our biggest to date.

The conference was opened by Scotland’s Minister for Communities and Sport Stewart Maxell, and a civic reception was hosted by Bailie Gibson in Glasgow City Chambers.

The conference was the perfect occasion for announcing record figures of EACA members – 3,747.  These figures will continue to climb steeply, as EACA shifts from being the European Athletics Coaches Association, to the European Alliance of Coaches Associations.  In the next years there will be active promotion of creating national coaches associations in every EA member nation.

The conference has, by tradition since 1960 rotated around Europe to give nations the benefit of having international coaches and coaching experts to enrich their own programs.  However, this makes EACA vulnerable to criticism from EA when absence of professional administration and cost of travel lead to low numbers of delegates.  EACA council has, then made a decision to have a fixed location for the conference at least until 2012 and probably 2014.  The location will be as this year, Glasgow, and the conference will be developed to establish the EACA Festival of Coaching.

EACA is indebted to UK Athletics, Scottish Athletics, Dallas Trust, Glasgow City Council and EA for supporting the conference.  The technical content of presentations is available on www.europeanaca.eu.

Clyde Hart delivered an excellent account of his approach to coaching and conducted a 400m specific workshop.

Yannick Tregaro explained his philosophy of coaching, outlined the year plan for jumpers and discussed the changing fortunes of Swedish athletes.

Bingshu Zhong gave a detailed account of the Chinese coach education program.

Ken Porter proposed a new paradigm for club athletics

Frank Dick introduced the Coaches Charter and challenged coaches to take a stronger position in European athletics.

The workshops reviewed the Olympic Cycle; examined technical trends and issues; and made recommendations for reversing Europe’s regressive performance trend.

The dates for 2009 are to be finalized.  The choice is 30 October – 1 November or 7-9 November.

EACA Council elections were held in Glasgow on November 2nd 2008 at the EACA Conference. All proposed delegates and council members were elected unanimously. Mr Frank Dick was reelected for the position of EACA president whose candidacy was proposed by Serbia and seconded by Bulgaria. Dr Dane Korica and professor Peter Bonov were reelected to their positions whose candidacies were supported by Serbia and seconded by Bulgaria. Mrs Lorna Boothe was reelected General Secretary of the association as her candidacy was supported by the president and seconded by Czech Republic.

EACA Website has registered over 250 members in the first few months of its launch and the current numbers of new members that gained its membership via the new website stands at 262. The website also helped bring members from outside Europe, bringing members from all over the world. All of this rising interest of the Coaches from all over the world to join the EACA is bringing new levels of knowledge and expertise to the organization and a variety of coaching methods to be shared in the upcoming conferences. The EACA is currently an association of over 2000 coaches from almost every European country and the membership numbers keep rising constantly.

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