Asda Sporting Chance

SportsAid has announced their collaboration with supermarket giant, ASDA, with the launch of an initiative called ‘Sporting Chance’. Unveiled by SportsAid ambassadors, Olympic and Paralympic legends, Roger Black and Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, ‘Sporting Chance’ will give up to 500,000 youngsters access to free sporting sessions every summer for the next five years.It will also provide thousands of hours of sports coaching free each year and will provide investment of more than £2million to the UK’s top emerging young athletes.

The Sporting Chance free sports sessions are designed to keep children both active and entertained during the summer holidays and will be offered through local community sports providers such as leisure centres and health clubs every July - until 2013!

From fencing to football, badminton to basketball and trampolining to table tennis, all you need to do is pick up a leaflet from any ASDA store to redeem your free session.

Andy Bond, CEO and President of ASDA says: “Sport has always been integral to my life and it gives me a sense of tremendous pride that ASDA is now helping to provide a wealth of sporting activities for kids in the community at no extra cost to mum.”

As well as encouraging thousands of children to play more sport, SportsAid and ASDA are also working closely together to help the next generation of talented sports men and women finance their full potential with individual awards of £500.Over 700 young sports stars, both non-disabled and disabled, aged between 12 and 16 years old, will be selected in two phases each year from now until 2013 and each ASDA store will help raise their profile in the local community.

Tim Lawler, Chief Executive of SportsAid says: “There is a real need to support our future medal hopefuls from an early age. More investment is essential to ensure we continue to help talented young athletes who can represent Great Britain in the future. ASDA’s commitment is a fantastic boost to British sport.”

Launching summer 2008, ASDA Sporting Chance,will inspire thousands of children throughout the UK to get involved with sport. The campaign has the backing of the key bodies in UK sport and delivers against government’s ‘Every Child Matters’ agenda. Responding direct to London 2012, the long term commitment will enhance community sport participation through to 2013…

Following a successful pilot in Manchester plans are currently being developed to roll the programme out across the Country from Summer 2008. The campaign will run for the next 6 years and create a lasting sporting legacy for our young people. A number of leisure providers such as Greenwich Leisure Ltd, DC Leisure and Parkwood Leisure have already signed up, with a total of 50 private / public /trust owned and LA run organisations involved. However there is still the opportunity to be involved to fill gaps in delivery.

Get involved in Sporting Chance
The commitment from leisure providers is to provide free child sport session in return for the Asda vouchers distributed in store. The benefits for the providers are:

publicity and association at store and on website
link with business in the community and access to Asda shoppers
contact details of the individual taking part in the sport to try and capture their long term participation in sport.
the long term nature of the campaign – every school holiday (excluding Christmas) up until 2013
first chance linkages and opportunities with the SW Regional Media campaign “Lets Go” being run by Sport England and the South West Media Group
potential volunteer opportunities in future years for Asda staff to help and join in and maybe even complete training courses to assist in delivery of the programmes

If you are interested in participating in this programme please email Jason.Lyons@sportengland.org at the Sport England South West Regional Office to find out how to be involved. He will put you in contact with your local County Sport Partnership coordinator.