Honoring the Work of Coach Whitfield

Also discussed at our recent player's meeting, Assistant Coach Maggie Whitfield will be resigning from her position at Thomas Nelson to pursue opportunities to teach abroad. Although, I support Maggie in the pursuit of her dreams, it's unfortunate that Coach Whitfield will not be returning to our staff. Maggie is a very strong and caring LEADER whose work impacted a number of players and students this past season and school year. Coach Whitfield's strong presence helped make me a better coach and I am grateful that I had an opportunity to work along side her. I want to encourage you to reach out to Coach Whitfield to express your gratitude and to wish her the best of luck with her future plans.

At this time, I do not have someone in mind for assistant coach. Nelson County Schools will post this position on their website, so it will be open for people to apply. I will be brainstorming options whom I feel best align to our mission and whom can best support our program moving forward. Thank you for continuing to support of our program and our community.


Thanks,


Alex Martin

Quarter 4 SOC Reflection

CARE

1. How do you wish to help others in your student organization to be their best selves next year?
2. In what ways do you want your student organization to build on service for your community partner? What have you learned from the experience.
3. What do you want to experience next year? What steps do you need to take to achieve this?

Coming into this year as a new SOC rep, I often had questions on what this process would look like and be.
Striving to not only be my best self on the field but also the classroom was a step I needed to take personally
all four years of being here. Next year, the new rep has amazing leadership skills, and will do the job just like
it would need to be done. I am super excited to be working with Sammi Howard to ensure all of my action
steps can be built upon and made into something more. Instead of having one service project, she can plan
two. She will ensure everyone around her that they can be pushed into becoming a great leader. With the
help of her peers, she can be pushed to become a bigger and better leader. I have learned that it is hard
having attendance at certain events held with your community partner, so try and promote the idea during
the season so when the time rolls around, you can easily gather people to attend the event.


CONNECT

1. What methods of communication will you utilize next year to ensure the needs of all stakeholders were met? How will you ensure your communication demonstrate a connection to the larger mission/vision? What would you change?
2. What questions should you be asking that you are not?
3. Does your blog connect with the community?
4. How might your small group, organization, or SOC help you?

Before this year I had never wrote more than ten emails in a school year. This year, in order to ensure proper communication with my sponsor, community partner, and many other people I used email as my main method of communication. Having a one on one conversation on email and making sure it is easy to read and understand is important. With Coach Martin leading the blog and remind 101 system it is easy for him to stay in touch with the community, players and their parents and keeping them involved and informed with everything going on.

CREATE
1. What is ONE Thing you are most proud of for your work today? What is ONE Thing you need to dedicate more energy to?

In SOC this year we had time to create many new projects and ideas get others involved and to get involved within our community. With this time I was able to make things for my student organization and also within the school and SOC. I am most proud of my work with the angel tree project and also the Taylor Martin Memorial Soccer Game. Both events gave back to our community, and we were able to prepare for these events with the time given to us in SOC. The angel tree initiative was as a whole, and the Memorial Game was through my student organization.
One thing I would have done differently is spreading the word to 8th graders and freshman before the season started instead of waiting until we start games to gather people to come and try it out. With the new SOC rep this year, I believe she can start traditions and rituals with keeping the same ones in place. She also can help Coach try and get new faces to come out and see what TNHS Girls soccer has to offer them. It is all about opportunities, and who will take what is out there.

Pre-Summer Player Meeting

Hello Lady Generals Soccer Community,


With only six school days remaining in the current school year (depending on which day you read this post of course), summer 2018 is fast approaching. With that being said, the preseason window for fall sports is coming soon! The purpose of this post is to provide an overview of our upcoming calendar while highlighting a few major events that will be occurring during the 2018 fall season.

Each of these items were reviewed during a recent player meeting on May 16, 2018. If you were unable to attend this meeting, please review our agenda LINKED HERE. Embedded throughout the agenda are action steps that each player should take BEFORE the upcoming fall season. Please review these and complete them before July 10th. As usual, feel free to reach out to me with questions or concerns.


Thanks,


Alex Martin
Head Coach Lady Generals Soccer