A bolt from the blue

Rob coaches young archery students at PCYC

Thrust by chance into the world of coaching more than 25 years ago, Rob Young is grateful for an incident that led him to volunteering.

As a kid, like many young boys, Rob loved to play with bows and arrows, but it was a far cry from teaching others to become proficient in the sport.

When Rob’s own son decided he wanted to take up archery, Rob thought ‘why not’ and went out and bought his own bow.

Rob and his son went along to the Police and Citizens’ Youth Club (PCYC) in Stead Road before the new building in Sandford Road went up.

“The old shed in wintertime was freezing and in summer you cooked,” Rob laughs.

“One night I was in with the kids and the archery coach didn’t turn up, so I found myself doing the coaching.

“He never turned up again, I never saw him again.”

Rob found himself well and truly in the deep end.

“I did go to a coaching seminar held here in Albany with coaches for other disciplines and that gave me some insight into where I was lacking and I did get my certificate.”

The archery session grew when archery moved into the new building providing more space, allowing for five shooters instead of the space for three, they’d had previously.

Attendances for the course jumped at one stage to 30 kids a night.

“I’d have to turn some of them away because I’d have to make way for the adults who wanted to come and do their shooting.

“But my wife and I just plugged away trying to get through them as fast and as safely as we could.”

It’s only a couple of years ago that an accident caused Rob to stop archery.

But some of the youngsters he coached are now married with kids of their own. 

“They’ll stop me in the street to say thank you. They still remember me.”

Rob says the whole experience of volunteering is very satisfying.

“I enjoy working with kids.

“As well as the archery for PCYC I was working with kids with special needs.”

While Rob says that although none of the kids he’s taught over the years have excelled in archery, many of them have gone on to achieve success in life, partly he believes because of the ethics they learned at archery.

“They learned to take orders and to take criticism, which a lot of young people can’t do.”

Rob says volunteering is a great thing to get involved with, particularly if the subject you teach is something you are interested in yourself.

His own volunteering wasn’t just limited to archery, in the past Rob was also a volunteer powerboat instructor helping youngsters to get their skipper’s ticket.

“I spread myself around, doing what I can do, learning new things so I can pass on what I learn. That’s why I did archery.”

CEO of PCYC, Peter Tranter, said without volunteers like Rob not-for-profits working to benefit the community would be hamstrung.

“PCYC alone has 188 volunteers at our centres across the state who are involved in everything from coaching and childcare to transport and administration,” he says.

“PCYC wouldn’t be the organisation it is today without the amazing support of its volunteers. Many of the children and young people we work with don’t have a strong family support network, so PCYC is a place for them to build relationships and connect with their community.

“We become a home-away-from-home, and often those life-changing connections are with people who give their time so generously to help young people reach their potential.

“We are incredibly grateful for all the volunteers at PCYC who choose to spend their time transforming the lives of children and young people.

“It can also be an incredibly satisfying experience for volunteers to see young people, many of them are at risk of finding themselves on the wrong side of the law, become valuable members of our society.

“We’re always on the lookout for volunteers to support running our recreational activities and diversionary programs,” he said.

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Allen Newton
Journalist and public relations specialist Allen Newton has worked across major media organisations in Western Australia and PR locally and internationally. He and wife Helen Ganska operate Newton Ganska Communications. Allen started his journalism career at the long defunct Sunday Independent and went on to become the founding editor for news website PerthNow, Managing Editor of The Sunday Times and PerthNow and then Editor-In-Chief of news website WAtoday. As well as news, he has been an editor of food and wine, real estate, TV and travel sections. He’s done everything from co-hosting a local ABC television pop show, to editing a pop music section called Breakout with Big Al, and publishing his own media and marketing magazine.