RESEARCH
Adult participation numbers are
encouraging for many sports The Olympics boosted membership enquiries at non-traditional sports, such as archery
adult and successful partnership work between clubs and schools is helping to solidify that pathway to being active for life.
Clubs as the social fabric It’s not just schools that clubs are build- ing links with. Sport and recreation boosts not just physical and mental health but also provides opportunities to engage young people at risk of suc- cumbing to antisocial behaviour, helps create social cohesion and can improve educational attainment. Clubs know this and more than half
(54 per cent) are proactively running programmes which engage the com- munity. What’s all the more remarkable is that 60 per cent of these projects are entirely self-funded. And as clubs are engaging the community, so the com- munity wants to engage with clubs. People are wanting to get involved and clubs have seen a 20 per cent increase in the number of volunteers – with the average club now having 24 in total. Sport already has more volunteers
than any other sector – 22 per cent of all volunteers in England – but why are more people now keen to get involved? One of the main worries for clubs over the past few years has been recruiting and retaining volunteers. The Games Makers were the success
story of the London Games and have helped to put volunteering back on the agenda. Research indicates that a third
of the British public wished they had volunteered to help out at the Games. A similar number also said the Games Makers positively changed the way they viewed volunteering. From this, schemes like Join In and
Give More have sprung up to try and capture that enthusiasm and harness it into a tangible long-term volunteering legacy. It’s too early to truly say wheth- er this increase in volunteering is a sustainable long-term trend, but clubs should use this information to facilitate greater awareness of the opportuni- ties available for people to volunteer locally. It is crucial that they really take advantage of the groundswell of sup- port generated during 2012.
30 Read Sports Management online
sportsmanagement.co.uk/digital
The future Sports clubs make us happier, health- ier and wealthier. If the government wanted to build a network of 150,000 community centres which gave as much to the country in crucial policy areas like health, education and crime pre- vention as sports clubs currently do, the costs would be stratospheric. So what can the government do to
show its support for the sector? The Sports Club Survey 2013 asked the na- tion’s clubs just that and five clear topics emerged. Clubs want the government to make
it easier to apply for funding that is available to them. Many of those ap- plying for grants are volunteers sifting
Issue 4 2013 © cybertrek 2013
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