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Behind the scenes, the Technical Committee, Admin staff, the Leadership Team, and many others are constantly working hard to improve everything that Maverick Volleyball does. We believe it is important to keep everyone in the organization up to date on what is happening. In this document, you can read all about the recent changes, upcoming programs and some spotlight events and performances.
ALL PROGRAMS & COACHES
New Program Coordinator
Welcome to Jacob Matheson, our new Program Coordinator for Learn-to-Play and Recreational Programs. He brings a ton of experience as an alumnus of our High-Performance program, current student-athlete at Algonquin College and his years of coaching in our LTP-Rec programs. Jacob can be reached on Slack or at Jacob@MaverickVolleyball.ca
New Maverick Initiative to Support its Athletes and Community
Have you ever had an athlete who was having a challenge paying for their team fees? Perhaps you helped pay for their meal, offered to drive them to tournaments, or maybe even offered their family some financial support? You’re not alone!
To address this reality, the Maverick Benevolent Fund was created. Initiated by Kerry MacLean as an informal committee of three volunteers, we implemented an application process to distribute funds to help athletes who need financial assistance. The funds, albeit limited, came from compassionate donors, including coaches, parents, partners, and the Club itself. Since 2015, we are proud to have distributed more than $70,000 to over 60 athletes in need. But we need to do more – much more!
That’s why Maverick Volleyball has started an exciting new initiative. In November 2023, it created a separate entity, the Maverick Youth Opportunities Fund (MYOF), as a not-for-profit organization. MYOF is currently in the process of obtaining charitable status, which will enable us all to raise more funds through donors, grants, partnerships, and other fundraising efforts. Our plan is to formally launch MYOF with the 40th anniversary celebrations of the Maverick Club. Stay tuned for more information as we move forward with this initiative!
In the meantime, if you know of an athlete in need, please don’t hesitate to encourage any athletes and/or parents with financial stress to visit https://www.maverickvolleyball.ca/financial.php and apply for either recreational or competitive program financial assistance.
Spotlight: Holiday Training Camp
To kick off the new year, we were able to run a holiday training camp from Jan 3rd to 5th. Athletes of all levels were able to sign up. They were divided into different groups and worked on their fundamentals skills and abilities. On top of that, the camp was uniquely designed to be a coach development opportunity, allowing coaches to develop their practice planning skills.
We were pleased to sell out all 72 spots and receive overwhelmingly ecstatic athlete and parent responses for the camp. Great job to all coaches and staff that were involved in this new program!
Update: Survey Results & Strategic Planning
The Maverick Club has experienced incredible growth and success over its forty-year history. Its evolution has required bold leadership, dedicated volunteers and passionate coaches to steer the organization in a direction that is always true to its core values.
As the Club approaches its 40th year of operation (Sept 2024-Sept2025), the Leadership Team has taken this opportunity to reflect on its past successes and current challenges to develop a bold new vision and strategic plan that will lead them into the future in a focused and effective way.
The first phase of this process is to hear from our stakeholders – both internally and externally – to determine their perception and opinions of the Club and its programs.
To that end, we recently sent out a Coach Consultation Survey, to hear from our most valued stakeholders – YOU! We sincerely thank all 73 coaches who took the time to provide their honest feedback.
Overall, the survey revealed the undeniable dedication that you all have to your athlete’s holistic development and to the Maverick community. We also learned how we need to provide more opportunities for continuous education, improve our onboarding, mentorship, and coaching resources, and ensure that we provide effective two-way communication to improve our programs and processes. We recognize that your time is valuable, and we need to be more efficient in helping you do the job you love best – working with our athletes!
As promised, we are sharing the survey results with you in an unedited way to ensure that we continue to be transparent and open in our communication as we move forward in the strategic planning process.
To access the survey results, please follow this link. (Note – to access the survey you will need a free Microsoft account)
Our next phase will include a thorough situational analysis that will lead to a 2030 Vision for the Club and an ambitious strategic plan to achieve this vision. For those of you who volunteered to assist us as we develop this strategy – we will be in touch!
Once again, thank you for your continued commitment and patience as we continually strive to meet the needs of our Maverick community.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS & COACHING OPPORTUNITIES
Looking For March Break Camp Coaches
We are looking for more staff for our March break camps (Mar 11th-15th). We are running camps at All Saints High School (Kanata), Immaculata High School (central) and St Peter High School (Orleans). If you are interested in coaching these march break camps, please send a message to Felix on Slack.
Summer Program Registration Is Open
Registration for all summer programs is open now in Amilia. This includes our indoor, beach and pre-tryout summer camps, the Beach Volleyball Development Centre and the Elite Development Centre.
Job openings for the summer will open soon, so please keep an eye on our jobs page, we have both part-time and full-time positions available for the summer. (https://maverickvolleyball.applytojobs.ca/).
Beach Volleyball Development Centre
We are very excited to partner with Max Volley to start a new program called the Beach Volleyball Development Centre. This program combines both training and competition on the sand. Athletes can sign up as a pair or as an individual. They practice one time week with Maverick coaches, and they compete one time a week in the Max Volley youth league. The BVDC will run both in Gloucester and Kanata to serve athletes in different communities. Registration is open on our store now so feel free to share this information with any athletes that are interested in beach volleyball.
NATIONAL / PROVINCIAL TEAMS
New Provincial Team & Coaches
With the completion of the Fall Competitive Training Centre, we can celebrate the creation of 6 new provincial teams. Just like last fall, these teams consist of athletes and coaches selected from their CTC to form a team and compete in the OVA with their final goal of participating in the Ontario Championships. We wish the athletes and coaches good luck and are excited to see where their teams will go!
Yannick Layton – 17u Cowboys
Alain Roy – 16u Toros
Peyton Walker – 16u Roulette
Bruce Contant – 15u Cavalry
Ursula Ngo/Scott Nesbitt – 14u Renegades
Nancy Cohelo – 14u Rascals
Spotlight: Maverick Volleyball Performance
With the OVA season well underway, now is a good time to look at how our teams are doing in the standings. Some standout performances so far this season have come from our 18U National teams. The Broncos are currently 6th in the province (95th percentile) and the Mustangs are 4th (94th percentile). A bit further down the age groups, we see excellent performances from the 16U Boys centre with the Bulls in 5th and the Longhorns in 6th (94th and 93rd percentile respectively) as well as our 15U Girls Ambush who made it to 20th in one of the biggest age groups in the province (91st percentile).
Another performance worthy of a mention is the undefeated tournament win in their first appearance as a provincial team for our 15U Boys Cavalry (see picture above).
REGIONAL PROGRAMS
New Regional Coaches
The Winter Competitive Training Centre is about to start, and we want to highlight our new regional coaches who will make this program a success:
Paul Nehme – 11/12U Mixed CTC General Manager
Evan Lockwood – 15/16U Girls CTC General Manager
Matheus Braz – 14/15U Boys CTC General Manager
Jackie Nguyen – 15/16U Girls CTC Head Coach
Yaser Eftekhari – 15/16U Girls CTC Head Coach
Jarrod McNaughton – 15/16U Girls CTC Head Coach
Annie Baker – 13/14U Girls CTC Head Coach
Troy Forgie – 13/14U Girls CTC Head Coach
Tim Barrientos – 13/14U Girls CTC Head Coach
Travis Hohner – 14/15U Boys CTC Head Coach
Hossein Sadr – 16/17U Boys CTC Head Coach
Katerine Harman – 11/12U Mixed CTC Head Coach
Karine Aubry – 15/16U Girls CTC Assistant Coach
Jon Bain – 11/12U Mixed CTC Assistant Coach
Katie Morisette – 13/14U Girls CTC Assistant Coach
Marnie McKinstry – 13/14U Girls CTC Assistant Coach
Olyvia Morton – 13/14U Girls CTC Assistant Coach
Lauren Casey – 15/16U Girls CTC Assistant Coach
Audrey Leblanc – 15/16U Girls CTC Assistant Coach
Nesrine Dahmene – 14/15U Boys CTC Assistant Coach
Spotlight: Winter CTC Tryouts
We have just completed the winter CTC Tryouts and it has been an amazing success. Over 370 athletes tried out for 5 different centres, which is more than double the number of athletes compared to last winter. This meant that organizing the tryouts was a monumental job. Thank you to all coaches who volunteered their time to be additional evaluators and enable us to run the tryouts smoothly. Special thanks to both Anthony Ha for organizing the tryouts and Yaser Eftekhari for attending almost every session!
LEARN-TO-PLAY & RECREATIONAL
New LTP & Recreational Coaches
Block 3 is about to start and we want to highlight our new Learn-to-play and Recreational coaches as well as some veteran coaches taking up new roles who will make these programs a success:
Olivia Connor – Moving from Assistant to Head Coach
Naoki Nakashima – Assistant Coach
Sarra Moncer – Assistant Coach
Block 2 & 3 Registration Numbers
Amazing job by all coaches in our LTP & Recreational programs. In Block 2, we had 828 athletes playing volleyball in these programs across 30 unique programs, a new Maverick record! However, block 3 is set to challenge block 2 with close to 800 athletes ready to hit the courts.
Jelle Kooijman
Technical Director
