North Zone Referees Committee

Richard Ridgway, an 18 year old St. Albert official, explored the possibility of using his Referee experience to count for High School credits in the same manner as any part time employment that his classmates could use.

He met with Mr. Bill Turnham and explained the role of the referee, his requirements to be a referee and the expectations we had as an association on our referees. Mr. Turnham agreed and Richard signed up for the Student Learning Plan under the Work Experience Program at Bellerose Composite High School.

At the end of the school term, the students are evaluated by their bosses. This evaluation is submitted to the coordinator and the students receive a mark and credit towards their High School Diploma. It was during the evaluation process that Mr. Turnham's eyes were opened to not only the job requirements of a referee, but he also had his eyes opened to the many extras that an official can do to give back to their local centre.

As Referee in Chief, I was Richard's evaluator for the work experience program. There was a standard form to fill out covering many areas such as work attitude, personal qualities and work performance which was broken down into job knowledge, dependability, reliability and communication. While I was completing my evaluation on Richard for the school, it occurred to me that there were many things that many of us do for our association that are over and above just heading to the rink, getting dressed and refereeing the hockey game. So in the essay component to my evaluation of Richard, I started to talk about the many extra things he did for our association.

I explained to Mr. Turnham our shadow and mentor program as well as supervisions and what we hope to accomplish through those processes. I explained how Richard took advice and constructive criticism quite well during supervisions performed on his game by our senior officials. I went on to inform him that Richard was a huge contributor to our program in that he mentored, shadowed and supervised many of our first and second year officials, imparting many of the things he learned from the senior people who were working as a mentor with him.

After I completed everything, I decided I would sweeten up the package and I provided Mr. Turnham with two of the Supervisions that had been done on Richard by senior officials. I also gave him a couple examples of the write ups Richard had completed on some of our first year officials through the shadows and mentorships that he had skated. My goal in all of this was to help one of my officials get a good mark for the academic side of his life.

So imagine my surprise when I got a phone call about three months later. Mr. Turnham had nominated Richard through the Chamber of Commerce Small Business Week Awards of Distinction for Excellence in the Work Experience program and a panel of judges wanted to interview me about Richard and our program in St. Albert.

The panel asked me many questions about the job of being an official. We talked about the expectations of our officials, dress code, arrival times at the rink, and then they asked me about the "extras" over and above the actual job. As I took them through the programs we offer, including the RATT (Referee Advanced Technical Training) and power skating programs, it was when we began talking about our Shadow / Mentor / Supervision Program where Richard really excelled in terms of doing the little extras.

The Chamber of Commerce panel of judges seemed keenly interested in what would motivate a seventeen year old to go above and beyond and give freely of his time to help the younger members of our association. I took them through our program in the same way I presented everything to Mr. Turnham. The interview lasted almost an hour.

In October of 2011, Richard and I, his proud parents and the six other nominees from the Work Experience Programs of the St. Albert High Schools went to the Chamber of Commerce Gala Evening. This Gala event also included the Small Business Awards of Distinction. It was held in the Arden Theatre in St. Albert. When they got to our category, the nominees were announced and they were invited on stage. The nominees were all given a framed certificate of their accomplishment. I would love to be able to tell you that Richard emerged victorious that evening, but as they say at the Oscar's every year, "It was nice to be nominated."

There are several takeaways from this experience that might be useful for other centres in the North Zone. First and foremost, from my perspective was the positive press that we got as an association through this entire exercise.

Secondly and of huge importance to all officials still in High School, through your officiating, you might be able to earn credits towards your High School Diploma. If there is a work experience / career and technology studies program in your school, it behooves you to ask the question. You can use the St. Albert experience as an example of a school division using officiating as work experience.

Further to Richard's success with this program, we have several other officials who have signed on to this program for this year. What are you waiting for? You have nothing to lose by asking.

Joe Becigneul,

Referee in Chief,

St. Albert

780-242-0854