Interview with Committee President

Throughout the Rest of this Academic year we are going to interview people within the Athletics Club on their progress and what they want to achieve for this season. No better way to start than our Club President Scott Gibson;

• Firstly, What made you want to come to Cardiff Met? Luck! I looked around Cardiff Uni and didn’t quite like the campus but loved the city and fell into Cardiff Met, I really fell in love with the facilities on offer as an athlete and I knew this was the place for me.
• What made you want the president role? I Regretted not being part of the committee team in past 2 years, was sort of pushed into the role by Matt Wood, but since taking the role on I’ve really enjoyed being part of the set up of the club and organising things to benefit others within the club.
• Tell us about some of you’re Personal targets for the year as an athlete? Represent myself well compared to the last 2 seasons as I haven’t been where I wanted competitively. Being more competitive within races is a must for me and having a competitive presence within races. Being as close to standard I was 3 years ago will be a massive step for me and give me a massive boost confidence wise.
• What about targets for the club this year, what would you like the team to achieve?  To build for the future I feel the first thing we need is to Maintain 2^nd place at BUCS Outdoors, to show we can compete with the best in the United Kingdom. Indoors I feel we need to take a Competitive Women’s team to achieve higher placing and pick up a few more individual medals aswell as maintaining relay medals previously won, this will be give team members confidence to go into the outdoors season. Aside from performance I would like the team to become more of a community, rather than individual groups. Whether this being more social events or watching other groups train, we all want each other to develop and achieve the best results possible but sometimes we could be more vocal to each other about this.
• How beneficial do you think it is having Athletics Directors James Thie and Matt Wood? Both very valuable as offer different things to the club, Matt bring’s a very well structured, organised and strict role to the team whereas James is very laid back and gets things done in his own way. Working very well together for the club, giving a great support role to you as an individual athlete. They both have Great understanding on balancing the different areas within the club and this has helped share out some responsibilities within my role as they are both knowledgeable in how to approach various things.
• As athlete do you have the support you need from the club? 100%! Matt and James are very accommodating and willing to talk and be there to help, which gives you great confidence as an athlete having a great support system around you. I myself am also more than happy to answer any concerns that other Athletics members may have, as I want everyone within the club to develop and not have any problems.
• Lastly, Are their any Additional Comments you would like to mention on  the Club? I feel the Graduate coaches scheme within the club is very exciting  and good to see freshers getting as involved as possible within that unique process, as not many universities offer that type of experience. I gives the opportunity for people to develop their coaching ability aswell as developing their network for the future whilst here at Cardiff Met. We have a very good support mechanism across all disciplines and many people feed from each other to benefit within training, this is a fantastic way to develop and we need to sustain this to help new members feel included in the future.