Sport Development Plan

As a newly joined member of the committee for the new multi-sports club which focuses on cycling, swimming and running I have come up with a 5 year development plan, which I am confident can give the club a vision and direction to go down in order to achieve an outcome of produce a number of good athletes and be successful in the future. The report will discuss possible funding sources, and identifying where and how much will be spent to progress the club and get it moving forward by hiring/buying facilities and equipment. The club has a variety of users ranging in ability level, gender, age and also sporting activity and the club has everything it needs to be successful in future. Therefore by coming together now and producing this report with future recommendations, the hope is that the club will continue to grow and develop sport and sportspeople in the local community.

Sports Development Overview Sports development is explains by Colchester borough council (march 2010) as “an increase in the number of high-quality opportunities for people to take part in sport or activity” meaning that sports development is to ensure that all people have the opportunity to participate in sport, and that this opportunity will help and encourage the participant to take part again in future sporting activities.

The most recognised and key model of sports development is the sports development continuum (Governing Bodies, 2007). The continuum highlights the four main stages of development where a performer could be placed. They are the foundation, participation, performance and excellence stages.

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The foundation stage of the pyramid incorporates grass roots level of sports, beginners and young children, and it is the stage where the whole emphasis is on participation and the enjoyment of sporting activities. It is where the performer is taught the basics skills and this normally takes place in an environment such as a P.E lesson at school.

The participation stage is the next natural progression on the pyramid and it is when the performer actually makes a choice to be involved in sport because they enjoy taking part or would like to keep a healthy lifestyle. This can range from anything such as going to the local fitness club, or joining the local Sunday football side, and is normally a result of a positive enjoyment or social benefit at the participation stage.

The performance stage is where the performer feels a strong desire to improve their technical ability further and that is one of the main reasons that they actually participate, and these performers tend to take part and represent at county level for example.

The final and smallest stage on the continuum is the excellence stage, which is where small percentages of people that take part in physical activity reach but always strive to reach; this is at the standard of the professionals either at a national or world standard. The two main reasons for the development of sport today are “sport for sports sake” and “sport as a social tool”. Recently the government has taken a massive interest in sport as they believe that it can help to eliminate some of the problems in today’s society such as high crime levels and the obesity epidemic.

This rising of sport on the government’s agenda has made for a massive evolution in sports development and it has progressed from a little known area to a massive and expanding profession. In 2002 they published the Game Plan report, it was constructed after a large amount of research, and the report shows how the government intend to achieve their sport and physical activity objectives in the future. They have backed this up with large sums of funding and (Game Plan 2002, paragraph 5) states that “over £2 billion from the government and lottery will be going into sport over the next three years” which highlights the commitment to sport that has been made. The Government have also set a national target to expand the base and increase participation in England by 1% annually. (Single system for sport 2002)

Various organisations that receive large amounts of funding promote and help sport progress in many different ways. For example there are organisations that operate such as Sport England whose main aim is to ensure that “ A substantial and growing number of people from across the community play sport” (Sport England, 2008) whilst organisations like UK Sport are more interested in “leading sport in the UK to worldwide success” (UK Sport, 2009). Therefore by UK sport focusing on the excellence stage and Sport England concentrating on developing sport from the bottom of the continuum up to performance level it shows that different organisations are constantly trying to improve each section which will help to go about achieving further success in the future.

Clubs Facilities A majority of the clubs participants train in swimming, running and cycling and we also have a participant they does all three and is an Olympic hopeful. Currently the club is hiring out the swimming pool at Sir Charles Arts College, the club is based here as they also have a gymnasium were they have exercise bikes where we run our fitness bike class. For the running the club uses the running track on the garrison in Colchester which is a rubber based competition running track. The swimming and running facilities the club use are of a good standard and all private for who is hiring it, however the cycling is not ideal as exercise bike are not the same as cycling on a real bike, this is the main point of the club that should be improved.

Key Objectives & Proposals

In order for the multi sports club to be successful it is essential that we capture the imagination of the local community through being diverse and offering them a variety of new activities to try, whilst also offering them regular sessions in as wide a range of activities as possible. As a result of this I have come up with 5 main objectives that must be met if this club is to be successful. They are • Increasing the level of participation.

• Form strong links with other clubs, organisations and businesses in the community to help with sponsorships and funding. • Improving the facilities that the club uses. • Widen the range of available activities. • Bring in and develop high quality coaches.

Raising participation is the first key objective that I will aim for. We need people to attend the activities that we currently have and through the use of advertisement in and around the local town and papers we hope to raise awareness of the club and in turn raise the level of participation. Having regular paying clients will enable us as a centre to get back some of the costs of the improvements that will be made therefore it is very important that we raise the number of people through the door.

I realise that bringing in coaches to replace the staff we already have will have an effect on the staff we do keep so if we give our current staff opportunities to learn and better themselves then their morale will rise, whilst it will also have a positive impact in the delivery/coaching standard of their sessions. This will provide us with a win/win situation as we will be getting better and higher qualified coaches providing more efficient sessions, which will give us as a centre a better reputation and make the club more attractive to the public. Also we intend to bring in highly qualified and vastly experienced coaches to help train our current staff to get them to a higher standard. This is important to the Olympic triathlon hopeful and to the club if we intend to produce more Olympic standard athletes.

Improving the current facilities they we use would also be of a major benefit to the club. The current facilities could do with upgrading and the three sports that have the highest number of participants, swimming, cycling and running, we will get better facilities and new equipment especially cycling we need to get some bicycles so the club can train properly which will help to maintain our client base and make them feel part of the club and feel that they can improve further.

The success of the sport club is dependent on the interest from the local community and for this reason I have highlighted it as a massive objective to interact with the local businesses, sports clubs and organisations to develop strong links were we can all gain something from each other because we all have a lot to offer. The sharing of facilities is something that we hope to gain through possible future links and we could also get some sponsorship from businesses that need promoting.

By offering a wider range of activities I believe that we will be able to attract different target markets and again raise the level of people that attend the club. With the club being new we need to show as many people as possible what activities we have to offer, the wider the range of activities the more people we can reach out to.

Funding

To help with the aims and further developments that will be made to the sports centre, it is vital that we can source some funding and revenue from one of the leading sports organisations or from local sponsorship deals. There are many options that are available to us and the opportunities for funding are out there, however there is not an endless pot of money and we as a club must show that we would put the money to good use in order to stand any chance of investment.

Sport coach UK is an example of an organisation that we would qualify for funding from. Our ideas fit in nicely with theirs and our objective to improve the level of our coaching staff would enable us to receive a sum of money. £1000 would be enough to significantly improve the standard of coaching of our staff and give them a chance to gain a higher qualification which could help in their future careers.

The club currently has one Olympic hopeful and we need to do everything possible to maximise their training and give them the best chance possible to succeed. To help the athlete we would bring in specialised high level coaches to train the athlete and also dieticians to provide the athlete with the necessary dietary needs in order to perform to the top level. UK sport deal with elite athletes and by hiring these specific staff to help our talented athletes we would qualify for funding. This funding would go towards the plans for the new equipment that our facility is badly in need of and also towards the payments for the top level coaches

Also through our main objectives and our will to improve participation in sport we may even qualify for funding from Sport England who share the same objectives. With this also being a government initiative we would qualify for funding The club will apply to Sports England small grant scheme for the sum of £10,000 to fund new equipment, facility hire and expansion of activities to increase participation to get the local community exercising and maybe get some participant up in the excellence section on the continuum like our triathlon Olympic hopefully.

Also additional methods of raising funds could be through business sponsorship and other fundraising events in the local community. We would be holding regular fundraising sporting activities where all the local community is welcome, and any additional funds would be pumped straight back into the sports centre.

Conclusion

This report has suggested a series of future developments that should be implemented in order to maximise the potential of the multi sports club and the future needs have been outlined clearly. Possible funding opportunities have been thoroughly discussed and obtaining this funding will prove vital in achieving our key aims. I believe that the five year plan and also the fact that the Olympics will be local will help to make the centre a massive success and raise the participation levels greatly in the community. Also all of the staff must be well aware of the relevant sports development theory and continuums and the guidelines must be followed to ensure that we can all achieve success in the future.

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