surf nation - MiMentor

15 January 2026

MiMentor and Surf Nation Partnership Blooms

by Jamie

MiMentor And Surf Nation Continue Successful Collaboration In 2026 Driving Coach Development At Scale

As the Surf Summit Convention (26–28 January 2026) approaches, it feels like the ideal moment to reflect on the continued growth and impact of the partnership between MiMentor and Surf Nation – a collaboration that has evolved into one of the most comprehensive coach development ecosystems in youth football.

Established with a clear purpose, the partnership set out to create a consistent, high-quality learning experience for coaches across the Surf Nation network. At its core was a shared belief: that reflective practice, leadership development, and long-term professional growth should be embedded into everyday coaching life – not treated as one-off interventions.

Over time, this collaboration has grown well beyond a traditional programme offering. What now exists is a scalable, insight-led coach development model, aligned to Surf Nation’s culture and values, and underpinned by meaningful engagement data, qualitative feedback, and real-world application.

“I’m extremely proud of the way our Surf Nation community has embraced learning and leadership through this partnership.
“The engagement we’re seeing speaks to a culture that wants to grow, and we’re excited to keep building something that supports coaches and leaders across the entire network.”
Gary Curneen, Surf Nation Director of Football

Leadership Development at the Centre: The Surf Nation Football Directors Course

A defining milestone in the partnership has been the launch of the Surf Nation Football Directors Course, powered by MiMentor in July 2025. Designed to support those leading clubs and shaping environments, the programme marked a significant step in Surf Nation’s commitment to developing leaders, not just coaches.

The four-month course brought together 30 coaches from 22 Surf Nation clubs, each engaging in a blend of structured online learning, facilitated discussion, and three live webinars. The programme was led by Ryan Maye, Head of Coaching and Development at Aston Villa, and focused on the competencies required to lead modern football organisations.

Key areas of focus included:

Vision and mission development

Emotional intelligence

Professional development planning

Leading people and shaping environments

Participants were required to translate learning directly into their own club contexts, ensuring leadership development extended beyond personal insight and into organisational impact.

Feedback from participants reflected this emphasis on relevance and application:

“This course has been a game changer for not only myself, but for the club I am privileged to lead.”

“I am very grateful for this course. It made me really feel like I’m part of the Surf network.”

The success of the Football Directors Course has helped shape the next phase of the MiMentor x Surf Nation partnership, reinforcing leadership development as a central pillar of Surf Nation’s long-term strategy

Engagement, Commitment, and a Culture of Learning

Alongside leadership programmes, coach engagement across the wider platform has continued to grow at scale. Between May and December 2025, the Surf Nation platform on MiMentor reached 990 registered coaches, with 34.5% actively enrolled on courses – a strong indicator of organic engagement across a large national network.

Learning activity during this period has been both broad and sustained. Coaches collectively logged:

435 hours engaging with structured courses

1,031 hours accessing on-demand resources

1,640 resource views

386 formal course submissions, highlighting a clear commitment to reflection, application, and professional accountability rather than passive content consumption

Engagement has been driven by a blend of monthly MiMentor themes, Surf Nation bespoke learning content, and football-specific modules designed to connect philosophy to practice. The most accessed learning included Module One: Why Do I Coach?, Decision Making in Football, and Playing Out From the Back, reinforcing the importance coaches place on clarity of purpose and game understanding.

Beyond formal courses, self-directed learning has been a notable feature of the platform. Resources focused on possession-based training, the Surf Nation Game Model, and small-sided 1v1 practices have been accessed most frequently. Coaches have continued to submit reflections and action plans beyond mandatory requirements, pointing to a wider cultural shift where learning is viewed as a professional responsibility rather than a compliance exercise.

“The course was very helpful, giving me some ideas to implement , especially concerning getting some parents involved to help.”

Quality, Relevance, and Insight-Led Development

Maintaining quality and relevance has remained central to the partnership. Ongoing analysis of course ratings, completion data, recommendation levels, and qualitative feedback ensures learning continues to align with Surf Nation’s strategic priorities and the realities of the coaching environment.

Across the platform, learning has received an average course rating of 4.6 out of 5, reinforcing the value coaches place on content that is contextualised, practical, and immediately applicable. This sentiment is echoed consistently in coach feedback:

“It is very relevant as I navigate communicating with players that have just entered high school. It offered a great breakdown of the different methods of communication.”

What Next?

As Surf Nation continues to grow, the partnership with MiMentor remains focused on scaling learning without losing quality, context, or connection. From coach education to leadership development, the ecosystem now in place reflects a shared commitment to developing better coaches, stronger leaders, and more effective football environments across the network.

About MiMentor

MiMentor is a global coach development platform designed to help individuals and organisations build sustainable learning cultures. Through a blend of digital education, mentorship, reflective practice, and applied learning, MiMentor partners with clubs, federations, schools, and sports organisations to develop coaches and leaders at scale.

In addition to delivering standalone courses and supporting independent coaches, MiMentor works alongside organisations to design long-term development pathways aligned with their values, culture, and strategic objectives. The partnership with Surf Nation reflects this approach, combining high-level expertise, contextualised content, and data-led insight to support continuous improvement.

Looking Ahead

We are grateful to be part of the growing Surf community and look forward to connecting at the Surf Summit. The MiMentor and Surf Nation partnership stands as a clear example of what can be achieved when coach development is approached strategically and collaboratively.

With nearly 1,000 coaches engaged, thousands of hours invested in learning, and clear evidence of application across the network, the foundations for long-term impact are firmly in place.

For organisations seeking to strengthen leadership, align learning with culture, and create sustainable change through coach development, the Surf Nation journey offers a practical and scalable model for partnership-led success.

19 December 2025

Reflections Of A Great Year For MiMentor

by Jamie

Reflecting on a great year for MiMentor in 2025 as we look ahead to 2026

As 2025 draws to a close, we’ve taken time to pause, reflect, and appreciate what has been one of the most exciting chapters in MiMentor’s coach education journey so far.

It was a great year for MiMentor that brought real momentum.

We’ve seen enhancements to the MiMentor Coaching Platform, created new partnerships, and seen inspiring stories in coaching and development from the elite level to grassroots, across the world.

Above all, it has reaffirmed what we set out to do: make high-quality football coach learning more accessible, structured, and measurable for the people who need it most.

Our news page has been full of highlights, covering launches, collaborations, events, and moments that showcased the value of continuous development in football coaching.

We are proud to carry on our work with Aston Villa Football Club, deliver a bespoke Football Directors Course with Surf Nation, and share knowledge through webinars and tailor-made online learning to support the challenges our partners face.

And we’re equally excited to welcome Arsenal Academy into the MiMentor community. It’s a milestone that reflects both the growing demand for connected learning environments, and the trust placed in our platform and library of great coaching content.

Just as importantly, 2025 has also been a year of continuity.

MiMentor Partners Platforms - Great Year for MiMentor

We’re grateful to the organisations who didn’t just join us but chose to extend their partnerships and deepen their commitment to development through the MiMentor Coaching Platform. That continued belief helps us keep improving the platform, expanding the content library, and delivering experiences that genuinely support staff, coaches, and learners at every level.

To every coach, mentor, educator, practitioner, and organisation who engaged with MiMentor in 2025 – thank you. Your commitment to CPD and to becoming better for the people you serve and support is the driving force behind everything we do.

Whether you completed a course, joined a webinar, subscribed fully, or simply explored new pathways, you contributed to a year of meaningful progress.

The Challenge We Keep Hearing

As we look ahead to 2026, the opportunity is huge, not just for individual coaches, but for the organisations we support across sport, healthcare, education, and corporate learning. Different sectors, same core challenge:

How do we make learning and resources easy to find, easy to use, and easy to measure, without relying on multiple disconnected tools?

This challenge has guided much of our work in 2025 and will continue shaping our vision for 2026.

MiMentor Courses - Great Year for MiMentor

Supporting Pathways From Professional Academies to Grassroots Clubs

One of the most exciting parts of MiMentor’s growth is seeing how the same library and platform functionalities can support development across the whole ecosystem — from professional academies to grassroots clubs.

For academies, it’s about clarity and alignment: a central place for methodology, onboarding, session plans, CPD pathways, and staff development across phases and departments.

For grassroots clubs, it’s about access and simplicity: trusted resources, clear learning pathways, and an easy-to-use platform that supports volunteer and part-time coaches without adding admin.

MiMentor brings it together in one place – pathways, coaching courses, modules, resources, groups, certificates, assessments, and reporting – while still allowing each organisation to tailor the experience.

Our on-brand customisation means every hub can look and feel familiar to its users from day one, boosting engagement and making learning easier to adopt.

And as we move into 2026 and beyond, we’re building with scale in mind. With translations being added, MiMentor will be able to support organisations in new regions and markets, helping deliver high-quality development that’s locally accessible and consistent across languages.

Creating Content That Makes Learning Stick

Great platforms are powered by great content, and in 2025 we’ve continued to expand the opportunities for organisations to do more than host learning: they create it, refine it, and share it at scale.

MiMentor supports the full content journey, from building structured learning pathways and micro-modules, to capturing webinar series and workshops, to turning internal knowledge (methodologies, standards, and best practice) into resources that are searchable, measurable, and easy to revisit.

Whether it’s coach education, practitioner development, onboarding, leadership, or mentoring, we help organisations package their expertise in a way that’s clear for learners and valuable for the organisation.

This is where our work with universities and prestigious organisations such as Association of Sporting Directors and Commonwealth Games Federation is particularly exciting. These partnerships reflect the growing appetite for blending academic insight with real-world practice, and for creating content that is evidence-informed, practical, and scalable.

Together, we’re helping convert expertise into accessible learning that can support staff development, research application, and consistent standards across programmes.

Looking into 2026, content creation will remain a key growth area, not only for what MiMentor provides through the library, but for what our partners can build, own, and evolve within their own branded hub.

MiMentor Partner Content - Great Year for MiMentor

A Digital Home for Learning That Actually Works

MiMentor enables organisations to launch a fully branded digital home for learning and resources. A single, centralised hub where teams can access onboarding pathways, CPD modules, SOPs, playbooks, session plans, research, webinars, replays and more.

Behind the scenes, roles and permissions keep content relevant, groups move conversations out of scattered chats, and certificates, assessments and analytics transform activity into meaningful evidence.

This approach is now helping sports pathways, academies, healthcare programmes, education providers and corporate L&D teams deliver consistent, structured development at scale.

Building 2026 Together

As we step into a new year, we’re excited to continue evolving alongside you.

Whether you’re an individual coach looking to progress or an organisation aiming to unify your learning environment, 2026 offers a powerful opportunity to grow together.

If consolidating content and giving every user a clear “what’s next” is on your roadmap, we’d love to show you what your own MiMentor hub could look like.

Let us help you offer more first-class development opportunities to your people. Book your platform demo with the team now.

Here’s to a powerful year ahead, for you, your organisation, and your learners…

If you want to see how MiMentor can help you in 2026, get in touch here – we’d love to hear from you!

19 November 2025

Surf Nation Coaches Leading The Way

by Jamie

30 Surf Nation Coaches Complete First Director of Football Course Powered by MiMentor and Led by Ryan Maye

MiMentor is proud to celebrate the successful completion of the first-ever Surf Nation Director of Football Course, a groundbreaking four-month program developed in partnership with Surf Nation and led by Ryan Maye, Head of Coaching and Development at a leading Premier League club.

Over 30 coaches representing 22 Surf Nation clubs across the United States dedicated themselves to this journey, with participants investing on average 14 hours to complete the courses on the MiMentor Platform with additional time spent attending live webinars and digital drop-in support sessions. The course was designed to empower the next generation of soccer leaders with the knowledge, confidence, and leadership skills needed to drive long-term success within their clubs.

A Comprehensive Learning Experience

Built on MiMentor’s proven education and mentorship framework, the Director of Football course explored key areas essential to high-performing football environments – including vision and mission development, emotional intelligence, and professional growth.

One of the standout modules, Professional Development Planning (PDP), guided coaches through creating structured, actionable plans for their personal and professional growth. Through this module, participants learned how to assess their strengths, identify growth areas, set meaningful goals, and align their development with both personal ambitions and club objectives.

Learning in Action

Throughout the program, coaches were encouraged not just to learn but to apply. Each participant presented how they would implement their key insights within their own clubs – creating a ripple effect of leadership and positive change across Surf Nation.

Reflecting on her experience, Debs Brereton, Surf Nation’s Director of Coaching, shared:

“Learning more about empathy and self-awareness helped me understand how my emotions and behaviours shape the environment I create. Working through the Professional Development Plan really pushed me to think critically about my growth areas – it was challenging, but incredibly rewarding.”

Leadership and Mentorship at the Core

Under the guidance of Ryan Maye, who has played a pivotal role in the success of a current English Premier League club’s academy, coaches benefited from elite-level insights and mentorship throughout the course.

“It’s been a real privilege to work with everyone on the Surf Nation Technical Directors Course,” said Maye. “It’s inspiring to see such a forward-thinking organisation investing in its people and its future. The work done here goes beyond this course, it’s helping shape future leaders and strengthening the development of coaches across Surf Nation.”

A Shared Vision for the Future

The collaboration between MiMentor, as a global leader in coach education, and Surf Nation, one of the most successful youth soccer networks in the U.S., reflects a shared commitment to raising coaching standards and nurturing leaders who make a lasting impact.

“At MiMentor, we’re incredibly proud to partner with Surf Nation and Ryan Maye on such a forward-thinking initiative,” said James Baker our Co-Founder. “The Director of Football Course embodies what MiMentor stands for: empowering coaches and organisations through meaningful education, mentorship, and professional development.”

For over 47 years, Surf has been a pioneering force in youth soccer, with over $12 million in charitable donations, 20+ national championships, and a proud record of developing professional, collegiate, and international players.

By combining Surf’s legacy of excellence with MiMentor’s innovative digital education platform, the Director of Football Course set a new benchmark for leadership development within U.S. soccer, blending world-class expertise, reflective practice, and a commitment to continuous growth.