England Squash chief executive Keir Worth has admitted that it has been a “challenging few months” at ESR since he took over as CEO – but he feels that there is now light at the end of the tunnel.
He reveals in an exclusive column in the latest issue of Squash Player magazine that ESR have been hit by long-term sick leave and have undergone “a major restructure”, which has seen staff levels cut from 44 this time last year to 23.
“The past few months have been tough for everyone at ESR – the organisation has been under considerable pressure and it has felt as if we have been uncovering new problems every day,” he writes.
However, he adds: “Whilst externally you won’t see much difference yet, we have a new way of doing things and a new team, and we will gather momentum over the coming months.”
In addition to recruiting five new members of staff, Worth has been writing a brand-new participation strategy, called ‘Game Changer’, which was presented to Sport England in mid-December.
He says the strategy “represents a new approach to the way we operate – moving away from a delivery organisation to an enabling one” and it clearly impressed Sport England, as they have announced another year’s funding for ESR.
The latest issue of Squash Player also features columns from ESRPerformance Director Tom Duggan and Alison Waters, the reigning British national women’s champion and world no.5.
There is also an in-depth interview with Yorkshire’s James Willstrop about his recovery from a hip injury and his thoughts on the rest of his career, while ESR High Performance Coach Lee Drew focuses on one of the former world no.1’s trademark shots in his regular column.
In other features, Yorkshire-based Chris Simpson writes about his favourite shot, Gary Nisbet continues his fitness series and West Midlands regional coach Steve Townsend gives out some useful tips.
A full list of the contents is on the squashplayer.co.uk website [http://www.squashplayer.co.uk/magazine.htm ]
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Report courtesy of EnglandSquashandRacketball.com