WELCOME

We are the governing body for Games Coaching.

Games Coaching is about giving everyone time and space to think a little more differently.

All profits go to charities supporting the neurodivergent.

WE HAVE 3 MAIN ACTIVITIES...

for Games Coaching

To offer Games Coaching as a platform for everyone to diversify their thinking.
To recruit, train and support Games Coaching while helping Games Coaches find work doing Games Coaching.
To promote the benefits of Games Coaching.

HOW WE OPERATE

Peer review

Let’s get the standard stuff out of the way. All Games Coaching members must be welfare trained, with DBS, and first aid trained.

Instead of making Games Coaches operate to The Standard for games coaching we use three forms of peer review...

Peer review of Games Coaching members by players. All sessions are pay-as-you-go, with no trials, no squads, and players turn up because they want to. If players keep turning up they are giving their peer reviews of their Games Coaching.
Existing Games Coaching members peer review when someone can join as Games Coach
Existing Games Coaching members peer review each other to maintain membership.

The second and third peer reviews follow these steps…

Step 1: Current Games Coaching members keep an eye out for players who attend our community sessions and who are very comfortable playing games to diversify their thinking and ask if they would like to explore joining.

Step 2: Those selected by current Games Coaches members attend a course on how the brain works in the most and least effective way while working alongside current Games Coaching members. No exams. No certificates. It’s just interesting. The basic content is outlined later on in this document.

Step 3: When 3 of the Games Coaching members confirm someone is ready to run their own sessions they are accepted as Games Coaching members of NeuroDiverseGamesCoaching.ORG

Step 4: Once a year all Games Coaching members attend a festival of games where we have fun as we play games to diversify our thinking as a way for of us all to peer review each other.

Step 5: If 5 Games Coaching members agree a current Games Coaching member is no longer suitable to be a member that person is removed. If they want to come back they go back to Step 1.

OUR POLICIES

Inclusion, Child protection, neurodiversity, reporting procedure

When Games Coaches are working for other organisations those organisations policies apply as well as our policies.

Our inclusion policy

We will never exclude someone for struggling to meet The Standard of any given sport. We play with space to create something out of nothing. As everyone can occupy space - everyone can help frame space - so everyone can play a part in creating something out of nothing and help others adapt on the field of play. The only way a player will be excluded is when they refuse to follow the “be kind” rule - which often means they refuse to play with space and instead repeatedly tell others how to meet The Standard of the sport being played and/or impose athletic dominance to overcome weaker players.

Our child protection policy

Our policy is to minimise the power distance between a coach and their players. Games Coaches are not allowed to rank, grade, select or deselect players on their ability to progress toward The Standard of the sport being played. There are no squads. No weekly commitment to play. There is no peer pressure to meet The Standard of the sport being played.

Our policy for neurodiversity

We know from science that the brain rewires itself. As our brains rewire their circuitry to better meet our circumstances and we are all different and living different lives - no two brains are exactly the same. We are all - to varying degrees - neurodiverse from each other. Science also suggests that two brains that think differently are better at solving problems than many who think the same. We know the ability to diversify our thinking is crucial to all aspects of our lives. Our neurodiverse policy respects science and encourages everyone to be more neurodiverse of each other. Our "Be kind" rule stops everyone from trying to make others think more like themselves. To honour and encourage neurodiversity. We don’t try and “fix” the neurodivergent by making them less neurodivergent.

Insurance policy

Games Coaches are responsible for their own insurance. We are currently seeking to partner with insurance providers to make this as easy as possible.

Reporting procedure

All players, parents, and Games Coaches are encouraged to report anything they don’t like to our help centre where other Games Coaches are available to peer review the performance of another Games Coach. If that doesn’t resolve the issue it is passed to our governance committee.

OUR GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE

IAIN BOWLER

Background

Iain qualified as a lawyer in 1988 specialising in M&A, stock exchange and complex commercial and joint venture work. Between 1998 and 2002, Iain was Director of Corporate Finance at a corporate industrial developer headquartered in the UK and USA. He joined one of the world’s largest law firms in 2002 and was global Co-Chair of the Commercial Contracts and Franchise and Distribution Groups for 10 years before joining Freeths as National Head of Commercial in 2019.

Freeths is a UK top 50 law firm with offices in 12 cities in the UK. The firm employs over 1,000 lawyers and support personnel and in the last financial year had fee income in excess of £110 million.

Professional expertise

Iain’s work involves commercial transactions of all descriptions, including outsourcing, offshoring, manufacturing, consultancy, services and service level agreements, procurement of goods and services, supply chain management, logistics, international trade and capital asset procurement, and maintenance. Iain also advises clients in relation to the many different ways of delivering goods and services to market, both within the UK and internationally, including direct sale, agency, distribution, e-commerce, and business format franchising.

Iain also advises in relation to domestic and multi-jurisdictional structured joint ventures, partnerships and strategic alliances, providing advice on appropriate deal structures and delivery mechanisms relating to national and multi-jurisdictional transactions.

Iain is ranked as a “leading individual” for commercial and franchise work in The Legal 500 and Chambers, is listed in the global Who’s Who Legal for franchise work and is an Acritas™ Star Lawyer. Iain is an Affiliate Member of the British Franchise Association and contributing editor of Global Legal Group’s “International Comparative Legal Guide: Franchise”.

Other information

Iain lives in Hertfordshire, is married to Victoria (also a Partner in an international law firm) and has 4 children. He is a keen sportsman with interests in rugby, snowboarding and all forms of motorsport. He is an RFU accredited junior rugby coach and referee.

STUART MARSHALL

Stuart is an experienced outdoor instructor with over 30 years of commercial outdoor teaching experience. He is a national instructor for scuba diving and also a cave leader, bushcraft instructor, and river guide with a particular interest in exploring the remote rivers of Scandinavia. He spent many years working at the Leadership Trust when it was the UK's foremost management training centre.
He is also a company director of his own First Aid Training business with clients as diverse as the Forestry Commission, Imperial College, Birmingham University, and the Natural History Museum. He has used neurodivergent thinking to develop a unique one-day blended First Aid at Work course (plus two days of eLearning) that massively frees up staff time (compared to a traditional 3-day classroom-based course).

Stuart also chairs the Advisory panel for the First Aid Industry Body, the UK’s foremost governing body for independent First Aid training companies. He has also held national positions with the Sub-Aqua Association one of two British Scuba Diving Governing Bodies.

Stuart’s qualifications are diverse from an academic PhD in Microbiology to H&S and leadership qualifications plus video production, animation, etc

Stuart has been working with Jon Thorne for many years and being neurodivergent himself understands the aims of the awarding body and the benefits to those who take part.

LOUISE HOSKING

Louise has 30+ years of experience in Occupational Safety & Health (OSH) working beside organisations of all sizes, within a range of sectors to achieve their OSH goals and beyond.

Louise is an unconventional #HealthandSafety entrepreneur and influencer motivated by the potential of the profession to unlock the hidden abilities of people to support one another to create a healthy world to live, work and do business.

Louise is Director of Hosking Associates Ltd, a boutique Health & Safety consultancy, supporting a range of organisations. Director of the OneWISH coalition which is a social enterprise supporting Women & Inclusion in Safety & Health. And, recently completed a term as the elected President and Chair of IOSH council.

For those who don't know - The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) is the world’s Chartered body for safety and health professionals - representing almost 50,000 people around the world

KENNY LEWIS

Kenny is a freelance festival coordinator and event producer, specialising on festivals and events in Wales since 2013. He is a qualified Anthropologist who has developed academic theory on group wellbeing, & community resilience funding (WCVA). Kenny has a strong connection to West Wales greenfield community festivals such as Unearthed Festival, Fire in the Mountain, The Big Retreat, Green Gathering (as Artist Liaison, admin coordinator, volunteer manager, stage manager, site production, promotions manager). Kenny is the founder of Unearthed Sound System which is an inclusive platform for a range of up and coming arts and music performers. While being academically known for his current PhD study at the University of Dundee. Kenny also has strong ties with the University of West Wales, Lampeter. Kenny has until recently been an event Director for a CIC restoration project in Haverfordwest (Haverhub) which is now a thriving and diverse community hub.

EXECUTIVE

The Executive is responsible for executing NeurodiverseGamesCoaching.ORG strategy that is agreed by the Governance Committee. We are in the start-up phase so it's only Jon at the moment.

JON THORNE

When it became clear that helping some of the best engineers on the planet to work together had been the perfect preparation for home-educating his two neurodivergent children - Jon gave up work to home educate. 15 years later Jon is returning to the world of work with a more neurodiverse version of sports coaching.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonthorne/

Jon is always happy to chat

jon.thorne|@LifeSkills21.club