Sunday 9th September 2007

John Beckwith Building, Loughborough University

This year's Annual Referees' Conference was held on Sunday 9th September in the Beckwith Building, Loughborough University. Below is a report from the conference prepared by Denis Le Breuilly:

FIVB President of Rules of the Game – Five new Candidate Internationals

Volleyball England achieved a major coup for this year’s Referee Conference in securing Sandy Steel, President of the FIVB Rules of the Game Commission, as guest speaker. The window of opportunity finally opened after previous invitations had to be declined by the extremely busy President, who juggles his FIVB role with his work as a teacher in Scotland. It was an opportunity to meet and question the ‘top man’ on Rules of the Game, and sixty-five referees took that opportunity.

In his opening welcome, President of Referee Commission Bernard Kilkenny outlined the importance of Mr. Steel’s role on a world scale and stressed how honoured the Conference was to be able to host him.

Sandy Steel’s first session provided an excellent insight into the requirements for 2012 and enthused many to consider the opportunities, particularly for line judging and scoring, but also for many other roles.  Stress was placed on the commitment required, not only by the individual but also by Government, local authorities and employers - to ensure work leave was available for training, the events leading up to 2012, and both the Olympics and the Paralympics.

There followed presentations by Volleyball England’s five new Candidate International Referees, who had all successfully completed courses in August. Nick Heckford for Volleyball, Andries Pienaar and Greg Thompson for Beach Volleyball, and Dee Wauchope and Glynn Archibald for WOVD (Disabled Volleyball). Each outlined the programme and structure of their courses, and their personal observations. All stressed the high level of knowledge required e.g. knowing rules word for word and being able to use the rule terminology when examined, including orally and in match situations. Very evident was the intensity of the courses, with study into the early hours!

Ensuring that the Conference had something for everyone, Charlie Orton outlined the work of Regional/Local Referee Administrators, emphasising the need for all referees to support and take responsibility for the development of new referees at ‘grass roots’ level in their areas.

In his second session of the day the President of the FIVB Rules of the Game Commission gave a valuable insight into how the rules had developed to their present stage, what was being trialled and which future developments were most  likely to be implemented – the most important of which was  ‘quick substitutions’, controlled by the scorer.

After a presentation by Nick Heckford and a discussion on referee uniform, answers were given to all the rule questions previously submitted, with Sandy Steel clarifying several issues. President Bernard Kilkenny closed the meeting, thanking the attendees for their commitment to volleyball and their participation in what had been a very successful Conference.

The Annual Conference is free to all registered referees, and compulsory for all NVL panel referees.  Information regarding next year's conference will be available in the summer.