This week marked an exciting step forward as we officially launched the SKILD Coaches Community — a space designed for coaches to connect, share ideas, and grow their coaching businesses together.
🎉 Wins & Milestones
AJ Dawson shared an exciting update in the Wins & Milestones channel:
“Should be having a new coach start with us at Footy Teacher. AFLW premiership player and current AFLW player with the gc suns !”
A huge step forward, with the announcement expected soon.
🧠 Coaching & Athlete Development
Andrew shared practical examples of Individual Development Plans (IDPs), sparking valuable discussion around how coaches structure athlete progression:
“For those who were in this discussion or just joined last week - here are some examples of IDP’s (Individual Development Plans) - absolute gold for your athletes, participants and/or clients. First one is a one pager I recently designed helped keep everything visible and simple and to the point. The second one was the one I designed when i worked for the GC Suns (Academy Head Coach Role).If you can break your specific sport up into the key criteria that makes the ideal player go from here. With AFL - it’s technical (kick, mark, handball), athletic profile (speed, endurance etc), mindset (grit, resilience), game sense (reading play/cues, decision making), then off field development. Be interested to hear what some other sports base their development categories off?”
This was reinforced by Mike Armstrong, who shared how he applies similar principles in a gym setting:
“This is brilliant, I do something similar, just less formal in the gym. The ability to perform key moves are my metrics for progression, then tie that to quantitative results such as sprint times etc to ensure the ability to move is converting to actual improvements.”
💼 Business & Operations
Important conversations also took place around the business side of coaching. AJ Dawson asked:
“Hi Guys,
Quick question around insurances and what do you guys do or how are you guys are insured with your private coaching businesses?
Any advice tips or tricks or contacts would be awesome”
Andrew shared insights into current solutions and hinted at future opportunities for SKILD coaches, particularly around group insurance options.
🎧 Learning & Development
Toby Prunty contributed a valuable learning resource:
“Hi Team, hope you all had successful weekends. Just wanted to touch base with an interesting podcast I found today. Talks about confidence vs. self belief. ”
A great reminder that coaching development goes beyond sessions — it’s also about mindset and continuous learning.
Andrew has opened up a poll for an upcoming:
“Coaching Online Event/Discussion (Coaches Triad)”
The goal is to bring coaches together for a short, high-value session (approx. 45 minutes) to dive deeper into key topics and share insights across the community.
The first week of the SKILD Coaches Community has already shown the value of bringing coaches together in one place — sharing wins, exchanging ideas, and supporting each other through both the coaching and business sides of the game.
This is just the beginning!
Sources:
SKILD Coaches Community - A WhatsApp Group