Summer camp alumns reunite at air base tourney

A recent tournament of Europe-located US Department of Defence high school teams held at RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk brought several VbDC camp alumni back to England. Coach Brian Swenty, who has led two summer camps, brought his girls varsity squad from the US Army base at Vilseck, in southern Germany.

Swenty’s team, listing several freshmen starters from a school of just over 400 students, held their own against schools more than twice that size, including a tight-scoring three-set loss to the tourney’s dominant team from Kaiserslautern Germany, which had two more VbDC camp veterans on its roster: Bella and Marlee are ow in their freshman year, the athletes – who have attended two summer camps each – are already sharing starting setter duties for their varsity team.

The K-Town–Vilseck game was described as Kaiserslautern’s toughest match of the two-day event. Swenty and other coaches expressed an interest in partnering with VbDC to form an all-star travel team for a summer youth tournament in Europe in 2025.

Summer camp alumns reunite at air base tourney2024-09-29T23:01:20+00:00

Pre-Teen Volleyball

Volleyball is one of the fastest growing team sports in England, but there are few opportunities for athletes under the age of 12 to receive training from qualified coaches. Volleyball Development Camps aim to do something about it this autumn.

A new programme will address that gap in order to introduce youngsters to the game and prepare them for participation in new youth leagues being created across the country. Volleyball’s value as a high energy sport is just beginning to be appreciated in the UK for it’s demands on physical development in movement and coordination, and it’s requirement for teamwork and communication.

The programme consists of short periods of training in basic ball-handling skills, followed by structured small-sided games.  The days’ activities last one and half to two hours and will start in early November running through to December.

Contact us for more details
Pre-Teen Volleyball2024-09-24T17:04:03+00:00

A New Way

A new way to learn about Volleyball Development Camps programmes has been introduced.

Called Open Court, it is an invitation to attend a regularly scheduled video conference at which VbDC representatives can answer questions about the camps, seminars and workshops, where people thinking about attending can meet former campers, and where ideas for new programmes or additions to current ones can be shared.

Open Courts will be scheduled for different days of the week and at differing times, so people from time zones around the globe can participate. The dates of forthcoming Open Courts will be announced on the VbDC website. Click HERE for an invitation to an Open Court session;  or you can also email us at vbdc.volley@gmail.com

The first series will run until mid-summer 2024. After that they will take place with lower frequency until the start of the winter 2024-25 when they will again start a fortnightly or weekly schedule.

Request an invite
A New Way2024-02-13T23:53:04+00:00

Summer 2024 Residential Camps

How does a summer volleyball camp sound where you train with other volleyball players from around the world, receive five days of top quality coaching and stay in one of England’s oldest universities.

Oh, and how about staying for a few extra days to be part of our innovative and immersive English Language programme.

Don’t for a moment think that this is a typical Summer Language School with days spent in the class room – oh no !! Students will be out and about putting their language skills into practice in a variety of locations and situations. For example if the group is heading into London to visit a museum, the tutor will expect the students to look up the opening times and plan the train and underground journey as well as navigating their way there.

On the way to and from London (just over 40 minutes on the train) the group may pick up a newspaper and with prompts from the tutors discuss one of the stories.

      

Over the weekend our language campers will be joined by our week long residential campers at Royal Holloway university where they will enjoy dinner getting to know each other ahead of a week of hard training. Various evening activities are organised for both groups which could include a cinema trip, an evening bowling or scrimmage matches against local clubs.

Residential options are currently available for the Emerging Elite and Elite Camps

Of course we always welcome day campers who will travel to the venue each day for training.

Summer 2024 Residential Camps2023-11-12T19:23:46+00:00

Volleyball England Junior Grand Prix

One of the unexpected side effects of the Covid pandemic has been a surge in interest for playing volleyball among youngsters, certainly fuelled in part by a certain Japanese cartoon series.

Credit must go to Volleyball England and in particular to their Competitions Commission for first of all recognising the need for a competitive outlet for both the new comers to the sport as well as catering for the existing players and secondly devising a structure that pretty much addressed the needs of both groups.

Over 300 junior teams have signed up  for the Grand Prix series which is split into two tiers and played over 3 rounds in the Under 15, 16 and 18 girls and boys competitions. This structure should see teams playing at least a minimum of 9 matches, with Tier 2 events arranged to keep traveling distances down while also playing against a variety of different teams.

In Tier 1, after the first round of matches teams are split into Gold, Silver and Bronze pools, with movement between these pools also possible after the second round of matches depending on results.

We have been fortunate to have attended (and indeed hosted) several of these events and the feedback has been positive across the board

Volleyball England Junior Grand Prix2022-03-12T19:36:59+00:00

Photographs of VbDC camp athletes in action

One of the leading volleyball photographers in the country, Steve Smith, attended our week-long summer camps in August to shoot hundreds of photos of the athletes. As usual Steve captured some superb images of the athletes in action and maybe one of them is of your child that you would like to have for the family album.

Steve has posted these photos on his website, and Volleyball Development Camps is making a request: if the sport of volleyball has given something to your child, could you give something back to volleyball?  Even though Steve offers the photos free to download, our request is that if you download one could you please make an on-line donation to the Volleyball England Foundation, the fundraising arm of Volleyball England, our sport’s national governing body.

Funds raised by the Volleyball England Foundation are used to assist new volleyball clubs, established clubs which are launching youth programs, or schools that are beginning to offer volleyball as one of their after-school activities. It is all a part of helping the sport of youth volleyball grow in this country and your donations will play a big part in supporting the effort.

Our suggestion is that a donation of £5 per photo is made to the Volleyball England Foundation.

First, go to Steve’s website:  www.sandsphotos.co.uk

  • In the menu on the left is a link marked Portfolio, and when you hover over that you will come to a dropdown menu which includes a link for Sports.
  • Click on that and you will come to a page with a number of photo collections. Click the one marked Volleyball 2021.
  • That will take you to a page where you will find the VbDC camp your child attended; click that and you will find the photos. If you want to download one, there is a download icon in the lower right corner.

Once you have downloaded your photo files, you then go to this hyperlink   DONATE   and follow the on-screen instructions.

Thank you for helping the Volleyball England Foundation raise funds needed to expand the sport in this country.

Photographs of VbDC camp athletes in action2021-08-23T21:22:52+00:00

Who is eligible to attend VbDC activities?

There has been a lot of confusion about the covid 19 regulations concerning the age limits for attending indoor sports event since the summer, in part because Government guidelines have undergone several revisions since the pandemic began. We have occasionally been asked “to make an exception.” The answer to this request is always “no”. VbDC strictly follows the guidelines set by Government and our sports’ governing body, Volleyball England.

As of 2 December there has been a slight change and very welcome to the age rule regarding Under 18s as follows:

exemption to the rule of six … appl(ies) for U18s, disabled athletes and sport for educational purposes. Supervisors and coaches are allowed into junior sessions, but spectators are not. The definition of U18 includes young people who were 17 at the start of the academic year (1 September, 2020), even if they turn 18 during the remainder of that year.

Please help us to keep our training programmes and competitive events safe, and within the law, for all who take part by following this age guideline.

Who is eligible to attend VbDC activities?2020-12-02T12:29:42+00:00

VbDC miss out on semi finals

The Under 15 girls narrowly missed out on qualifying for the semi finals of the Volleyball England Under 15 National Championships. The team have visibly improved through each match, rapidly gaining in confidence as they progressed.

U15 Tournament Results
1st Boswells
2nd Newcastle Staffs
3rd VbDC
4th Ashcombe Dorking

VbDC miss out on semi finals2020-03-02T19:37:14+00:00

Launching our first camp for adults

It’s not about winning at volleyball… it’s about enjoying the game

You don’t have to be an elite athlete to enjoy volleyball, but you will get more pleasure from it at any level if you follow

EIGHT SIMPLE RULES

By popular demand, Volleyball Development Camps is offering a two-day workshop for adult recreational volleyball players who want to start the coming season with improved confidence in their skills, and a better understanding of the teamwork required to play a satisfying game. We call it Eight Simple Rules, or 8SR.

The new 8SR workshop takes place at the ACS Cobham International School Sports Arena on Saturday 21 September and Sunday, 22 September. The workshop begins at 10 am and concludes at 4 pm both days. Deadline for registration is 20 September.

Have you recently started playing volleyball? If so, ask yourself these three questions:

• Would you like to step your game up to the a higher level?
• Is being more satisfied with your on-court performance a personal goal?
• Would a better grasp of the fundamental tactics for an effective game help you improve?

8SR is not a team developmental camp, nor is it coaching individual ball-handling skills, although we’ll provide advice on those if you want it. 8SR is a 10-hour session of informal instruction geared toward adults. It follows eight points identified by VbDC Director of Curriculum John Biddiscombe which, if followed, can quickly help a recreational player find a greater degree of personal satisfaction from their game.

BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW

Launching our first camp for adults2019-08-29T20:11:02+00:00

Latest News

Time for a news update as there are so many exciting things happening for our former campers, mentors and coaches.

  • Ben Lucas won his first England senior cap against Scotland at the beginning of June, successfully making the often difficult step up to the senior squad.
  • Alice Brand and Carla Hulme paired up as one of the two England teams competing in the MEVZA (Middle European Volleyball Zonal Association) U20 Beach Volleyball Youth Cup along with another camper, Leah Blight in the other team for the competition in Slovenia.
  • Coach Will McDonald had a busy weekend of coaching with Richmond at the National Finals in Kettering where they were represented in every age group and along with several campers, winning 2 out of the 3 girls finals.
  • Another of our coaches, Rachel Hynes, managed the difficult role of Player/Coach to steer Dartford ladies to the South East Region championship.
  • Hannah Carey, a great friend of VbDC who has now settled the USA, battled back from an injury to compete at the USA Volleyball Nationals Women’s A division in Columbus Ohio and come a very credible 31st place, considering there were 482 teams.
  • One face that we sadly probably won’t be seeing this summer, but who’s voice we hopefully will be hearing a lot of is Clayton Lucas as he is busy providing, seemingly non-stop, english language commentary for the FIVB Volleyball Nations League (VNL).
  • Finally Ailsa McDonald who started as a camper, progressed to become a mentor and then a coach, currently working towards her level 2 qualification and culminating her time at the University of East London (UEL) was recently awarded the Service to Sports Award, no doubt taking into consideration the work she does with GB Sitting volleyball. Incidentally Ailsa’s multi talents also stretch to filming and producing the videos on this site.
Latest News2019-06-11T20:46:51+00:00
Go to Top