Oxford University Volleyball Club is the 30th Volleyball club in England to gain accreditation on Volleyball England's ‘Volley 1-2-3' Clubmark accreditation scheme.

In April 2007 Oxford University VC (OUVC) made the decision to aim for accreditation. This meant the club could access small grants from Volleyball England and the status would show that the OUVC is a quality club that is equitable, inclusive, friendly, well-run and most importantly safe.

"OUVC constantly requires funding, mainly to accommodate enough hall time for our growing club" said Nynke Hofstra from the club, "fundraising was therefore a major reason to try and become accredited and when we looked at the scheme, we already had quite a large part of the paperwork in place and had an active outreach programme. This made the accreditation application a simple and logical step for the club" she added.

Volleyball England has templates in place which can be accessed when required and development officers on hand to answer any questions. This, combined with the club's commitment to undertake accreditation, led to their success in achieving the accolade this month.

"Attaining Volley-1 accreditation is only one of the points of our development plan," said Nynke, "We have been awarded development sports status and received an additional grant from our Sports Federation for the next three years. Our objectives include enhancement of our current playing level, establishing the first team coaching as a stipendiary position, attaining full blue status (we are currently half blue), developing second teams that play in the BUSA 2nd Midlands divisions, extending our inter-university league, enhancing outreach, to improve links with other volleyball clubs in Oxford, to establish our 4Max September tournament as part of the grass tournament series and to add a beach volleyball component to our club. Utilising the Volley-1 accreditation as a foundation we hope to obtain more sponsorships to allow us to accomplish all these development objectives. OUVC is blooming!"