In response to a dwindling junior base, last year the Coburg Harriers Club developed a Junior Development Program to bolster their underage squad through a number of key initiatives

The first of these was to forge closer ties with the local Coburg Little Athletics Centre and this has been enormously successful with 33% of new athletes coming to the Coburg Harriers via this avenue of recruitment. Senior Coburg Harriers athletes have attended most meets to hand out certificates and monthly awards to athletes consistently performing at their best and the club has been grateful from the support received from the board of the Coburg Little Athletics Centre

The club has also been able to secure a volunteer's role through the assistance of Athletics Australia for one lucky Coburg Little Athletics member at the upcoming Melbourne Grand Prix athletics meeting to feature world record holder Asafa Powell and Jeremy Wariner. This has gone to fourteen year old Steve Marsh who has been the "find" of the season through the club's junior recruitment

To encourage participation in Athletics Victoria competition, a key component of the Coburg Harriers Junior Development Program was to put together a Junior Subsidy Scheme. Under the scheme, athletes registered with the Victorian Little Athletics Association have their Coburg Harriers membership fee waived and the club then pays their Athletics Victoria registration on their behalf - meaning it is free to compete for the Coburg Harriers while you are a registered with Victorian Little Athletics

To ensure that the cost of uniforms was kept at a minimum, in August last year the Coburg Harriers Club applied for funding through the Victorian Government's "Our Club, Our Future Sporting Uniform Grants Program". The goal of the grant fit perfectly with the Harrier's Junior Development Program in that it matched our aims of increasing community participation

This week, the club was notified by the office of the member for Pascoe Vale that the Coburg Harriers were successful in their application for the grant. The grant money will make it possible for the club to provide more than a dozen athletes their full Coburg Harriers uniform of competition singlet and club shorts

Club spokesman Jeremy Grey said, "This grant is very welcome at a time when the club is trying to build numbers through the junior ranks. With the overall Junior Development Program incorporating our Junior Subsidy Scheme whereby it is basically free to compete for the Harriers, we are now in a position to waive the prohibitive cost of uniforms to parents as well - an overall saving to parents of $100. So while everything else might be costing parents more, there has never been a better time to get involved with athletics at the Coburg Harriers."

The Coburg Harriers Club are the fourth fastest growing club in Athletics Victoria. The club competes in summer track and field as well as winter cross country competition. They conduct a twice weekly fitness group on the Harold Stevens Athletics Track in Outlook Road, Coburg North. The group caters for all fitness levels from beginner to advanced and all ages. The group has young people  from 12 years of age through to grandmothers in their sixties.

For more information, visit the Coburg Harriers website via http://www.coburgharriers.org.au or contact the Club Secretary via This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it  or on 03 9354 2362. The Coburg Harriers was established in 1896 and is one of the oldest clubs in the country