We all have ability, the difference is how we use it*

* Stevie Wonder

"Welcome to Sport England SW e-newsletter and thank you for taking the time to read through it.

"The series of partner engagement days started with Sport England, each County Sport Partnership and its partners on 13 November 2007, with Active Dorset taking the lead. The other six will take place through to April 2008, so look out for your County Sport Partnership’s invitations. Whether you are part of a National Governing Body of Sport, School Sport Partnership, voluntary sector or health organisation, these days are a great opportunity to network and get involved with planning, attracting resources and delivering in partnership.

“In response to the Foresight Report, Sport England is calling for a 'holistic, cross-governmental' approach to improving public health and tackling lifestyle diseases such as obesity. We should be using sport and active recreation in a preventative way, working together with health and wider agendas to increase and sustain opportunities for people to take part.

"Immediately below is the first opportunity to sign up for next year's Regional Conference for Sport being held on 27/28 February 2008 at Center Parcs, Longleat. 'All Together Now - The Business of Sport' will focus on creating a more sporting and active region and looking at the skills required to deliver that goal. Last year's event was heavily oversubscribed, so please book now to avoid disappointment.

"We also want to hear from volunteers first hand about their involvement in the development of Community Sport Networks in their local areas – this questionnaire looks at what the current involvement is and asks ‘what do sports volunteers want from their Community Sport Networks?’

A number of new publications, promoting sport resources and surveys are also featured in this issue that we hope will be of use to you in doing the day job.

Please do forward this newsletter to your relevant networks and partners across the Region so they can also take advantage of these opportunities and knowledge sources."

With best wishes

Jim Clarke
Regional Director
Sport England SW
Jim.clarke@sportengland.org

Conferences

Regional Conference for Sport 2008

27/28 February 2008 - Centre Parcs, Longleat - 'All Together Now - The Business of Sport'

The Regional Conference is focused on creating a more active region and looking at the skills required to deliver that goal. Inspirational keynote speakers include Dr John Bird (founder of the Big Issue), Jennie Price, the new Sport England Chief Executive and other high profile experts in the field of Leadership and Influencing. As well as being an ideal networking opportunity, it will also be fun, interactive and a chance to reflect, celebrate and galvanise the collective Sports sector working in the South West. A limited number of subsidised places will be available to encourage attendance from volunteers working in sport.

Download 2008 Conference programme. The 2007 event was heavily oversubscribed, so please book online now or complete the downloadable application form to avoid disappointment.

Networking

Role of Volunteers and their Engagement in SW Community Sports Networks

We are seeking the views of volunteers which will help shape emerging structures in sport and make sure the needs of volunteers are factored in.

The purpose of a new Federation of South West Sports Organisations survey is to:

- evaluate the current level of involvement from volunteers (as opposed to professionals from the voluntary, or third, sector) in the evolution of community sport networks as part of the delivery system for sport and active recreation in England.

- look at the barriers to volunteer involvement in community sport networks

We will use the feedback to make recommendations about how to maximise the effective input from volunteers into community sport networks.

Please forward details to volunteers in your network and ask them to complete the survey by 15 February 2008.

Community Sport has the Power to Transform Lives

Sport England Chairman Derek Mapp told guests at Sport England's Annual Open Meeting that the last 12 months had been 'challenging and inspiring' and that he believes 'passionately in community sport's power to transform the lives of people in England'.

Read a copy of Derek Mapp's speech in full.

Profiling

Market Segmentation

Sport England has developed nineteen sporting types to help us understand the nations’ attitudes and motivations – why they play sport and why they don’t.

The segments provide the knowledge to influence people to take part. This work is part of our drive to get two million people doing more sport by 2012.

Each segment can be explored at differing geographic levels. It is possible to find out what peoples sporting habits are in a particular street, community, local authority or region.

This research builds on the results of Sport England’s Active People Survey, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport's Taking Part survey and the Mosaic tool from Experian. It will inform our Strategy and Business Plan 2008-2011 and help us invest our money into areas that will have the greatest impact.

We are the only organisation to have this data and we want to share it with anyone who wants to get more people playing sport.

New to segmentation? Find out why and how we did it - and what it can tell you.

Find out about the 19 segments

Businesses use segmentation data to sell more products or services - find out how you can use it to promote sport in this 'How to' guide.

View case studies highlghting how other sports organisations have already used the data to promote sport.

Find out how to look at the distribution of the segments by different geographies.

More on Segmentation

Sporting Champions Case Study

Sporting Champions run 450 visits each year of which:

200 are for community visits
50 are for campaigning

The visits are primarily used to support work done by Sports Development Officers and there have been requests from SDOs for examples of good visits from which they can learn. Each month we will feature a case study to support you, SDOs and others in the Delivery System. They are on the Promoting Sport toolkit and on the Sporting Champions website.

Encouraging children with disabilities to take part in Community Sport

Event: a multi-sports and activities week for children with disabilities and their siblings, organised by the Children’s Adventure Farm Trust.

Spending time with Steve Daley, captain of England’s partially-sighted football team, raised the aspirations of a group of young people with disabilities.

Impact: 30 children with disabilities and their siblings listened to Steve, sharing his passion for and commitment to sport. They then took part in a morning’s football coaching session under his guidance, at the end of which all vowed to remain part of a club and to take part in every coaching session.

Download Aiming High.

Planning

Facilities in the Countryside

The latest Sport England planning bulletin 19 - Facilites in the Countryside - has been published. This bulletin brings together a number of recent developments in planning for sport and recreation in the countryside and focuses on the provision of facilities in countryside areas. In particular, it looks at the Environment Agency’s strategy for water-related sport and recreation (2006-2011) and Natural England’s research papers on outdoor recreation which guides the development of their Outdoor Recreation Strategy.

At a more local level, good work is being done across the Region by local planning authorities as they prepare development plan and supplementary planning documents as part of their Local Development Frameworks (LDFs). An example of an emerging LDF document from Bedford, the Countryside publication and other planning bulletins can be downloaded here.

Public Service Agreements and National Indicators

The Government announced the new Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets and a single set of National Indicators that will be used to determine Local Area Agreement Targets.

View a useful summary document for those involved in negotiating these agreements for Sport.

Recent Sport England SW Publications

South West Annual Review 2006 / 2007

Check what progress we've made with the South West Plan for Sport, our business plan targets and our county sport partnerships. See what grants we've awarded and how we've worked to get more people active.

Download South West Annual Review (pdf). View video highlights

For a hard copy version of annual review and dvd, please email: infosw@sportengland.org

Community Investment Fund - Annual Strategy 2007/08

The Regional Plan Bulletin shows priorities for funding for 2007/08.

We aim to inform you about the main criteria and priorities against which projects will be assessed, funding levels involved, and signpost you on for more help and assistance.

Social Enterprise Bulletin

Understand the potential of social enterprise models to deliver financially sustainable sports activities and in particular discover what a social enterprise is and its relevance to sport.

Download Social Enterprise bulletin

- Mevagissey Activity Centre (video)
- Crewkerne Aqua Centre (part 1 and part 2)
- Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy (Part 1 and Part 2)

Volunteering Framework for Action

See how Sport England will contribute alongside our partners to make an impact to the volunteer workforce – creating more high quality volunteering opportunities and sustraining participation in sport at the local level.

Download Volunteering Framework Bulletin

Facilities

Gold start for newly upgraded hockey pitch

Photo by Phil Serle of the official opening (left to right): Paul Gibbons (Sport England), Mark Blackham (Development Director of TeamBath Buccaneers Hockey Club), James Christmas (Chair of University of Bath Hockey Club), Janet Gubbin (Vice Chair TeamBath Buccaneers), Jan Baker (Vice President of England Hockey), Paul; Barber (member of GB Seoul 1988 gold medal winning team), Nick Kendall (Hockey Development Manager at the University of Bath and Chair of TeamBath Buccaneers), Diane Aderyn (Director of Finance, University of Bath), Brian Messer (Project Manager, Estates, University of Bath) and Matt Birch (Deputy Director, Department of Sport, University of Bath).

Olympic gold medallist Paul Barber was on hand to help officially open the newly upgraded state-of-the-art hockey pitch at the University of Bath Sports Training Village.

Barber, a member of the GB team that struck gold at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, was one of the invited guests to Sunday’s official opening ceremony.

Jan Baker, Vice President of England Hockey, performed the honours – cutting the ribbons in TeamBath’s traditional blue and gold colours to declare the pitch open.

“The new sand-dressed pitch is a big step up for us on the hockey facilities we’ve had here in the past,” said Nick Kendall, Hockey Development Manager at the University of Bath. “The old pitch has served us well, but it’s great to have the new surface for players of all ages to train and play on.”

The University of Bath has funded the scheme to the tune of £175,000, while Sport England has provided £100,000 of funding through an England Hockey Community Club Development Programme grant.

The VIP guests attending the official opening ceremony took advantage of the opportunity to see a wide range of games and training sessions on the pitch – a reflection of its future use.

They included Savilles Junior Mini League under-nine and under-11 matches and a TeamBath Buccaneers under-18s match against West Wilts under-18s in the England Hockey Cup.

TeamBath Buccaneers men’s firsts celebrated the official opening in style with a 5-0 thumping of Chelmsford in Slazenger England Hockey League Division One.

Upcoming

BBC Sports Awards

The BBC Bristol Sports Awards are on Sunday 2 December 2007. Sport England is sponsoring the Coach of the Year event.

Sport England sponsored the Team and Coach of the Year Awards at the BBC South West Sports Awards on 25 November 2007.

Congratulations to the winners and everyone nominated.

Regional Conference for Sport 2008

27/28 February 2008 - Centre Parcs, Longleat - 'All Together Now - The Business of Sport'

Gloucestershire's 2008 SEN Games

24 September 2008 - Oxstalls Indoor Centre, Plock Court, Gloucester

The 2008 Games are aiming to have upwards of 350 participants in one of the largest SEN youth sports festivals in the county. The Games will run for the whole day and bring together Special Schools and mainstream schools from across the county together as part of a festival of sport. The event will be focused on providing the opportunity for young people with special educational needs to gain a range of high quality sport and physical activity experiences.

The focus of the event is to display sports which have never been on the Youth Games programme before such as wheelchair basketball, orienteering and self defence etc. The sessions will primarily be run by Club coaches, to encourage the children to join local sports clubs in the future. Download Press Release.