Sports Summit 2015: A summery summary

Robert Gill, our new Policy Support Officer, blogs about his day and views, as a wide-eyed employee, on last week's Sports Summit.

With barely time to get my feet under my new desk and remember my new colleague’s names, I found myself being asked, in my new role as Policy Support Officer at the Sport and Recreation Alliance, to attend the Alliance’s annual Sports Summit.

On a glorious summer's day at the Kia Oval speakers and delegates from across the sporting and commercial sectors discussed some of the key challenges sport governing bodies are facing.

The event also tied in with a new report the Alliance published on the same day, Fit for the Future, which examines in more detail some of the challenges and pressures facing sporting governing bodies over the next couple of years.

Under the watchful eye of BBC Sport’s Karthi Gnanasegaram, the day started off with a talk by Sport England’s CEO Jennie Price about how we can become fit for the future, and the various challenges faced by national governing bodies (NGBs) in recruiting and retaining participants in their sports.

I particularly found interesting her remarks on the need for sporting organisation’s to accept that some people may participate in different sports at different times in their lives, and cater their services to this trend. She also warned about the importance of meeting the needs of a rising number of elderly people in the UK, an issue I have worked on before in a healthcare capacity.

Next up, a speech by the new Sports Minister Tracey Crouch MP. Given that this was her first scheduled speech on her new ministerial brief, this was hotly anticipated by the event’s participants and everyone was looking forward to hearing what she was going to say.

To the delight of her audience, she sounded really passionate about her new role, regaling the crowd about how she has tried every sport available and her work as a football coach in her constituency. Coming from a disability charity, I was pleased to see her commit to levelling the playing field for disabled people who want to play sports and show some interest when a representative from a deaf governing body asked about a lack of funding for the Deaf Olympics.

A full summary of her priorities will be as Sport Minister can be found here.

Another key issue that will certainly come up in the Minister’s in-tray was addressed by Dr Justin Varney from Public Health England, who talked about the sports sector’s engagement with the public health agenda. With the key role sport can play in helping people get healthier and reduce their chances of developing a long-term condition such as obesity or cancer, this was certainly an issue the delegates took a keen interest in.

After lunch, we had the chance to attend one of four workshops. There were sessions on the Mental Health Charter for Sport and Recreation, sports governance and funding. I attended one on the Gold Framework and the future of major sporting events in the UK, run by two people from the events team at UK Sport and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. As a sports fan who enjoys attending major sporting events, I found it interesting to hear about some of the future challenges facing NGB’s in bidding for and hosting major events in the future.

After sessions on engaging the next generation of athletes and getting them interested in volunteering, the role of wearable technology in sport and a talk by the “hardest person in sport” Chrissie Wellington on breaking down barriers to sport participation, the Summit was over. There was a lot of interesting discussions on the political, financial, social and technological challenges facing the sport sector over the next few years and it was a great way for me to learn about these issues and more. I now can’t wait to get started in helping the Alliance’s members in tackling these issues.

Click here to download the Fit for the Future report .

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