Review: This Girl Can in Herts Week 2017 Saturday 3rd- 11th June

1. Background

The success and evaluation of This Girl Can in Herts Week 2016, led to us wanting to build on this local participation campaign; continuing to support the national This Girl Can campaign by delivering a summer This Girl Can in Herts Week 2017.

This year the campaign focused on engaging mums, grans, sisters, cousins, aunties and friends who might just need a nudge. This Girl Can aims to help women and girls whatever their shape, size and ability to overcome the fear of judgement that may be stopping them from joining in. The new campaign for 2017 focuses on the CONFIDENCE, RESILIENCE and BELONGING that comes from taking part in sport.

2. Working Group & Resources

The working team consisted of Women & Girls Project Officer – Lucy Carey and work experience student - Kiki Christofi. It was again agreed that all HSP team members would embrace the initiative across their areas of work.

A project and promotional plan was created and a budget was allocated to the week. 3. The Concept

This Girl Can in Herts Week 2017 would build on previous success to:

 Extend the range of female-friendly activities and sessions at local clubs and community venues across the county  Work with a greater range of partners to raise the profile of sport for women and girls and to highlight the vast range of opportunities that are available  Encourage more local sports clubs & organisations to open up their doors by way of female-friendly taster sessions, open days, courses and competitions.

 Produce a seven day online programme of opportunities for women and girls to get active, aged 14-60 years.  Create a comprehensive promotional campaign to encourage participation  Give our current programmes a female focus for the week and beyond  Encourage pathways for ongoing participation

4. Promotional Activity

This year’s promotional activity was really important to engage with a diverse range of organisations as this was the main way of spreading the word about the week and what was on offer.

4.1 Lock-up Logo

A This Girl Can approved logo was created for the week that was used for all HSP promotional activity and that partners were encouraged to use on their own promotional activity - flyers, posters, social media etc.

4.2 Promotional Postcards

We printed 9,000 copies of a DL double sided full colour flyer that linked with our digital artwork and directed people to our website. The competition was also featured on the flier. These were mainly distributed by partners through local venues. The front and back of the flier is shown:

4.3 Poster templates

To increase the reach of participants, we designed two template posters for partner use. 300 Printed ‘Activities Happening HERE’ posters were distributed and displayed around the county to promote the week. An editable activity template poster was also designed and sent to partners, both electronically and printed copies within their support packs, to promote their localised sessions in their venues and local communities. These are shown below.

4.4 Support Packs

We rely heavily on our partners and their networks to promote local sessions, activities, offers and events so to help them be effective, we issued all participating partners with support packs which included the following:

Posted Packs:

 Promotional postcards  Activities happening here posters  Activity template posters (electronically & hard copies)  This Girl Can in Herts Week T-Shirt for instructors/coaches  Participant feedback postcards  This Girl Can promotional Balloons

Electronic Packs:

 Activity template posters  Activities happening here posters  Week specific lock-up logo  Website/social media week logo to link through to our website

TGC in Herts 2017 Support pack ready for distribution

4.5 Media Coverage

Successful media relationships had been formed and the week was now a familiar concept for the local papers, which led to some good media coverage leading up to and post event with both press and more diverse partner publications.

The press coverage included items in local publications, and a number of linked organisations that posted their own news items and wrote blogs etc. A selection of these are shown below:

St Albans, Now Publication: May 2017

4.6 Web Activity

We produced a dedicated bolt-on website for the activity programme. This was a simple website that enabled users to search for the day they wanted to participate and/or the activity they wanted to try.

All promotional activity directed people to the home page of the HSP website that featured a linked jpeg that took them to the This Girl Can in Herts Week 2017 website.

All activities that were listed had the following details:

- Name of activity and town - A brief description - Ideal target audience including level and age group - Full address - Cost - A direct link to the partner web page or email address

This worked really well, although the additional sort option by location and time would have been useful. A snapshot of the website is shown below:

WEB SITE ANALYTICS WEB SITE 29th - 4th June 5th - 11th June 12th - 18th June Visits to Home Page 198 272 265 Clicks to bolt on TGCinHerts site N/A 224 N/A Visit to the HSP TGCinHerts page 106 149 30 Visit to events page 45 113 41

4.7 Twitter & Facebook

Social media was once again, an important part of the promotional activity for this initiative and we used both Twitter and Facebook considerably in the lead up to the week, during the week and afterwards.

We used, and encouraged partners to use the hashtag #TGCinHerts which worked effectively.

TWITTER ANALYTICS 14 days Highest day Impressions - Highest day: June 7th Total 39,500 9,490 Retweets - Highest day: June 7th Total 94 30 Tweet with most impressions – Great Soccercise WFC 3’778 TRUST 7th June

FACEBOOK ANALYTICS 14 days Reach Number of clicks Individual post - highest 4,912 139 reach Boosted Post - reach 5,326 250

We spent £50 on boosted Facebook posts in total leading up to and across the week. We varied the times we did the posts to encourage participation in the week initially.

4.8 Polaroid Frame Use

Our popular frames were back in full force. We have been using the frames throughout the year to support the campaign so they have become known around the county. The frames were used to capture lots of women and girls being active. Some examples feature here:

5. Evaluation 5.1 Sports & Activities

The June programme included 304 different sessions and we were delighted that it featured 45 types of sport and physical activity throughout the week. The range of opportunities available ensured that there was plenty to inspire women and girls to try something new and get active.

5.2 Partners

No of No of No of Activity sessions Activity sessions Activity sessions Active Tots 5 Dance 10 Soccercise 4 Aerobics 5 Dodgeball 1 Skating 1 Aqua Aerobics 4 Events 4 Squash 1 Athletics 4 Fitness 12 Swimming 10 Badminton 4 Football 4 Tennis 27 Basketball 1 Footgolf 18 Trampolining 5 Benchball 1 Golf 7 Triathlon 1 Body Conditioning 11 Gymnastics 1 Volleyball 3 Bootcamp 37 Kickboxing 3 Walking 2 Bowls 1 Martial Arts 1 Walking Football 1 Boxercise 3 Netball 34 Walking Netball 9 Buggycise 5 Pilates 12 Yoga 18 Cheerleading 1 Rowing 1 Zumba 3 Clubbercise 6 Rugby 4 Cricket 3 Running 12 Cycling 3 Sailing 1

We scheduled a longer lead-in time this year, to ensure more partners had the opportunity to engage with the week. We had distributed the June 2016 report widely with our partners which meant that many more wanted to get involved. 108 different organisations supported the week in many ways. All partners involved are listed below and although many partners got involved for the second time, 64 new partners were involved for the first time, many of whom we hadn’t had contact with before.

Partners 1Life Feel hot Yoga Run Together Abbey View Golf & Track Fitness Squad UK Saint Joan of Arc Catholic School Abbots Langley Cricket Club Francis Combe Academy Saracens Sport Foundation ABC Skateboarding Furzefield Leisure Centre SB Personal Training Active Creative GMAX Academy Shenley Chapel Active RFC Sir Frederic Osborn School Aldwickbury Park Golf Club County Council Spins Table Tennis Academy Arsenal Ladies Hertfordshire Cricket Sportspace Batchwood Sports Centre Hertfordshire Sports Village St Albans Cricket Club Bedwell Rangers FC Herts Badminton Association St Albans District Council Birchwood Leisure Centre Herts Girls Can St Albans Rugby Club Bootyfit Herts Young Mariners Base St Margeretsbury Cricket Club Breeze Rides Hertsmere Borough Council St Mary’s CE Academy Breeze Rides Hemel Hertsmere Leisure Trust Stevenage Lifestyles Brickendon Grange Golf Club Hertswood Centre Sunshine Health & Fitness British Cycling IMPAKT Kickboxing The Dojo Org British Triathlon Knebworth Tennis Club The Shire London Broxbourne Borough Council L W Nutrition The Venue Broxbourne Runners Legends Tennis Club This Girl Can BSGC Academy Leventhorpe School Three Rivers District Council Bushey Academy Lindsey Fitness Tough Mother Bushey Grove Leisure Centre LK Fitness Univeristy of Hertfordshire Love to Dance Watford Borough Council Cancer Research UK Maxwell Park Community Centre Watford Central Leisure Centre North Herts Community Badminton Watford Community Sports & Chipperfield Football Club Network Education Trust Cranborne Primary School North Herts District Council Watford Get Active Croxley Park Green North Herts East Beds Sailing club Watford Running Sisters Dacorum Cycle Hub Nuttfield Health We Move, She Moves Dacorum Sports Trust Old Hatfield Ladies Running Club Welwyn Garden City Cricket Club Elstree Lawn Tennis Club Park Run Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council Welwyn Hatfield Community Golf Proaction Herts Badminton Network England Netball Welwyn Hatfield Volleyball club Everyone Active Robert Welwyn Rugby Club Fairlands Valley Sailing Centre Wodson Park Sport and Leisure Farriers Way Community Centre Royal Masonic School Centre Royston BMX Racing Club Your Town

5.3 Participation

We asked all partners to feedback the total number of women and girls who attended their sessions, and for the numbers of new participants who came along. Not all partners have sent back their monitoring information but the current numbers show that 3,059 women and girls took part across the week. Of these, 1,258 were new participants, confirming the effectiveness of the initiative. 5.4 Feedback

All participants were asked to complete feedback forms after attending a session. We wanted to gather some useful insight from the participants taking part, to evaluate success and shape our future work. The findings from the feedback forms collected was extremely positive. We received a total of 50 feedback forms and the results are sumarised below. Current Participation

We asked participants on how many days in the past week they had been physically active for a total of 30 minutes or more, enough to raise their heart rate. Of respondents 4% had not been physically active in the previous week; 16% had done an hour or less.

When asked if the session attended was the first, 22% of participants said that it was. 78% had previously participated at the session before.

We asked participants why they took part in the activity or session and these were the most common responses:

- Regular participant - To get or keep fit - To play with different people - Try something new - To play the sport - To have fun and socialise - To de stress - Ladies only session - Invited by friend / family

The most popular responses were to keep or get fit and to have fun and socialise.

Participation Enjoyment

We asked the participants how much they enjoyed the session and to provide additional comments. We are delighted to report that of the respondents, 96% enjoyed their activity/session.

76% said they found the session really fun and exciting; other comments were - motivational, great for socialising, brilliant way to have fun and keep fit, and the instructors were helpful and inspiring. Future Participation

96% of participants want to take part in the same or a similar activity again.

5.5 Key Successes

There were so many great stories throughout the week that we have tried to capture some of the best. A brief summary of these follows:

 Schools Activity: Lots of schools engaged with and supported the week by including their own lunchtime and after school activities during This Girl Can in Herts Week. It was fantastic to see so many girls aged 14-16 years taking part in new sports for the first time.  Role Models: Watford FC CSE Trust supported our week by running local Soccercise sessions both at schools and across leisure providers. They invited players from Watford Ladies Football Club to visit the sessions at the schools to help inspire the girls who took part.  England Netball: Many of our National Governing Body of Sport partners were engaged in the week organising activities, and helping to promote the programme. England Netball teamed up with local schools to hire their facilities to run Back to Netball and Walking Netball sessions. This proved most popular with participants who wanted to get back into Netball having a break from the sport.  Leisure Centres embrace the week: Many local Leisure Providers engaged with the week and opened up their doors to new participants with free or low cost sessions and other offers to entice.  Sports Club Success: Numerous local sports clubs used the week to encourage participation in a variety of innovative ways. Legends Tennis Club teamed up with Cancer Research UK to provide a fund raising This Girl Can Cardio Tennis to not only support our campaign but raise money for Cancer Research UK.

5.6 Considerations for the future

The week was brought together using existing staff resources and the invaluable assistance of a work experience student from the University of Hertfordshire. As a result of our June experiences we had a longer lead in time, increased the budget allocation and created a simple bespoke website for the programme of activities.

We did experience some different challenges and would therefore consider the following for a future initiative:

 Out of the just over 3,000 participants we only received 50 feedback forms. This was disappointing and something we need to build on. Partners were asked to coordinate this by encouraging participants to complete and then partners to collect in to send back to us as the feedback is really useful for the shaping of future weeks.  Our This Girl Can in Herts webpage proved a big hit. However, we did receive feedback from participants asking whether it would be possible to create the option where activities can be searched by just location or time.  On reflection it would have been beneficial to have a small group of TGC in Herts ambassadors to help promote the week prior to activities and events. Having dedicated TGC ambassadors will help to create a greater awareness of the campaign, and will enable ambassadors to also attend sessions engaging with participants on a wider scales.