Professionals Tamborine Mountain 
Little Athletics is a well-known organization whose reach spreads far and wide— not least of all over our community. Michael Taylor, who’s been volunteering with Tamborine Mountain Little Athletics for eight years, explains what they do and what makes it so great for our kids.
by Kyle Hitchmough
What was the motivation behind bringing Little Athletics to Tamborine Mountain?
Our kids are athletic and it was just to give people an opportunity to not have to commute to enjoy athletics. Also, athletics is a really great start for all sports. On top of that it’s all about fun and family and that’s what we really liked about Little Athletics. When we set it up, the objective behind it was to try to create a fun and friendly family centre where kids do a bit of exercise on the mountain, and learn some skills they can apply to other sports.
Is the entire staff involved volunteers?
Yes, everyone here is a volunteer. There’s no fundraising, whatever fees we get goes back into equipment to develop our little centre. Obviously, some fees go to Little Athletics Queensland to develop their equipment and things, but everything goes back into the grassroots.
What are the age ranges of the children you have here?
At the moment, Little Athletics ranges from Tiny Tots, five-year-olds, right through to seventeen-year-olds. Obviously we’re a smaller centre, so we don’t have some of the big numbers in high school that some of the other centres do, but as the little ones have grown up in the club, we’re getting more and more high schoolers coming through.
Is the focus more on the competitive side of sport, or more simple fun and play-oriented exercise?
We have got athletes that go through to state and national levels. We have an athlete here now who’s been selected as one of 12 children in Queensland to go off to New Zealand as part of an athletics development squad. We do have the competitive side of it, we’ve got regionals coming up next weekend, we’ve got kids who have won regionals and expect to have more of them going through this year, but our focus is really on the kids improving their personal bests. We don’t award someone for coming first or second or third, we award them if you’ve improved on what you’ve done before. So kids of any ability are able to progress and improve themselves. That’s what we celebrate.
What are the benefits of Little Athletics for children?
There’s a lot of children out here of any ability becoming fitter, more confident, becoming used to what it’s like to be involved with sports. Some of these guys have never done sports before. They don’t want to be part of a team sport, they’re more interested in feeling it out for themselves first. And this gives them an opportunity to, without any pressure on them, learn about themselves. When you’ve run 100m for the first time, or 800m, or 1500m, you see the pride that comes to these kids. It’s a huge development for them. I think that’s part of the inspiration for all of them, their own personal development.
What’s the parent involvement like with something like this?
Every child that’s here has a parent here. We can’t do everything ourselves, we get upwards of 80 kids on a Friday afternoon, so we need the parents’ involvement. There’s a safety aspect, we need to have parents looking after groups of children. We also have parents who we train, we send them on courses to become coaches. A lot of the parents that you’ll see here have learnt how to become a coach. Their commitment is vital to us.
You’re running this program on the Tamborine Mountain State School oval. What’s your relationship with the school like?
We work closely together. We’re really grateful for facilities that we’re allowed to use. We use the fields every Friday afternoon and extra training on Mondays for the developmental athletes. We contribute to the school as well. Little Athletics put in a grant application to install a new long jump pit, that’s $28000 we put back into the school. It is a symbiotic relationship, we work closely with the headmaster Jason Smith, and I think from both perspectives it’s a really good relationship.
How would a parent go about signing their child up? Do they need to buy any of their own equipment beforehand?
Not at all. Just look up our Facebook page, Tamborine Mountain Little Athletics, or Athletics Queensland or Little Athletics Australia, and they’ll be able to find us. We’ll send them all the information and they can come down for a trial.
Are you a local to Tamborine Mountain? What’s your opinion on the area and the community?
We’ve been here for over 12 years, my wife and I. You really couldn’t want a better place. It’s safe, it’s friendly, you can walk down the street and say hello to twenty people on your way to buy a coffee. It’s a very close-knit community. The Little Athletics centre here is very different to some of the others. All the parents are happily involved and that’s indicative of the community that we live in. People are wanting to get out and be part of something, that’s why people choose to live here. Everyone wants to be part of the community.
What do you enjoy most about doing this?
There’s not a lot more satisfying than watching 80 children running around getting fit and enjoying themselves. There’s a lot of satisfaction involved in just being around kids activities, but particularly when you know it’s something that’s benefitting them. A lot of the parents who are part of the club have grown up doing Little Athletics nationally and some of their stories we hear about their great memories of being part of Little Athletics… it’s something that stays with them their whole lives.
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