Funding community sport Conference 4th September 2019, University of Hertfordshire

How to develop a sustainable business model for providers of sport and physical activity How can governing bodies, enterprises, charities and other providers of community sport and physical activity generate the income required to deliver their work

In Partnership with

The funding landscape for community sport and physical activity is changing...

The world of sport is no different from the world of technology or commerce where the rate of change is increasing all the time. Governing bodies, social enterprises, charities must not only have the appetite for change but must also implement these changes and adaptations or they will struggle to exist.

At the same time, there is an increasing focus on how sport and physical activity can help change people's lives and create sport for social good, which is probably all well and good, but

While budgets are frequently threatened, these changes will probably also raise opportunities and challenges for providers when it comes to attracting funding. Opportunities in terms of the possibility of engaging with non-sport funders from health, justice/crime prevention, education and social inclusion. Challenges in terms of learning how to engage with partners and funders for whom sport is just a means to an end.

We are also experiencing a number of innovative enterprises who have developed sustainable business models running mass-participation events, developing community gyms, helping communities to prosper through sport and are getting inactive people active, all delivered in financially sustainable ways

But, it has to be said, that far too many providers and bodies within sport and physical activity do regard income and funding as an afterthought and therefore stagger from crisis to crisis when it comes to generating income to fund their good work.

And it seems that the community sport and physical activity sector can learn from the third sector and professional sport when it comes to generating income to help support and fund their work. In those sectors terms such as 'digital fundraising', 'diversifying income streams' and 'donor engagement programme' are commonplace - maybe community sport and physical activity bodies could learn from that.

So, we need to develop a new mindset and skill set - which is not always an easy thing; especially if your organisation has sunk into a state of what we call 'grant-addiction'.

This conference will feature real stories and successes to be told, lessons to be learnt, ideas and experiences to be shared .

Presentations from:

8.45 - 9.30 Registration and Tea/Coffee

9.30 - Welcome and introduction, Chair, Svend Elkjaer

Svend Elkjaer is founder and director of the Sports Marketing Network, a leading consultancy and information provider with community sport and physical activity. Being described as 'a positive disruptor' Svend has worked across the UK and Denmark with all types of providers and funders helping them to become vibrant, visible and viable.

9.40 How providers of community sport and physical activity can develop a balanced income model Svend Elkjaer, Founder/Director, Sports Marketing Network

Too many organisations in this sector are over-reliant on top-down grant funding and therefore have to deliver on objectives set by funders, good or bad.

Only but the largest sports bodies have got the resources to employ dedicated commercial staff so how do the rest of us develop a model and initiatives which can help generate the income required to deliver our work in the community.

So how do we develop a more enterprising culture and skillset across community sport and physical activity? How do we combine day-to-day operational aspects of generating income with our overall mission?

This presentation will provide delegates with specific advice and tools, supported by practical case-studies on how providers from across the sector can become financially sustainable.

10.10 – 10.40 How to secure new public-sector funding Melanie Antao, Specialist Advisor for Funding, London Sport

It is vital for providers of community sport and physical activity to develop robust project proposals to secure new public- sector funding and provide evidence base to support project roll-out opportunities.

They must also develop insight models to identify project roll-out opportunities aligned to funder priorities.

This presentation will use real case-studies where London Sport have worked with providers and brokered meetings between project leads and key funder decision makers and facilitated engagement between project leads and Local Government stakeholders to secure local buy-in. This has helped various providers raise hundreds of thousands of pounds in funding.

Melanie Antao supports the physical activity and sport infrastructure and networks across London to access existing funding resources, bring in new resources and make the whole process of securing funds simpler. She leads on major funding opportunities for London Sport, either as lead applicant or partner with other stakeholders.

10.40 – 11.10 Generating a surplus through innovation and transformation Ken Masser, Chief Executive, Rossendale Leisure Trust

In 2015 Haslingden Sports Centre (built in 1972) was a standard community leisure centre in the small Lancashire district of Rossendale. Now rebranded, ‘Adrenaline’, with a range of adventure activities sitting alongside a more traditional fitness and sports offer, the centre is a regional family attraction. This story is not only one of innovative facility development and community based marketing initiatives, but also the essential organisational and cultural changes that have made success possible.

Formerly a restructuring consultant at accountancy firm KPMG, Ken Masser was appointed Chief Executive of Rossendale Leisure Trust (a social enterprise managing sports facilities and programmes in the Lancashire borough) in 2015. He is also Executive Board member of Community Leisure UK, the trade association for Leisure Trusts in the UK, and programme advisor to the Pennine Lancashire Sport England Local Delivery Pilot.

11.10 – 11.40 Tea/Coffee

11.40 – 12.10 From 100 members to vibrant and visible community sports enterprise with more than 2500 members Melissa Anderson, Managing Director, Valleys Academy

Established as a Limited Company, with social and community aims underpinning the ethos and operating culture of the club, VGA has become a vibrant and visible community hub across South . The club has grown significantly in the past 5 years and is now the largest club in Wales by some distance - with a membership exceeding 2500. The club has won several awards over the past 4 years, including Welsh Gymnastics Club of the Year and the Business Wales Social

Enterprise of the Year (Consumer Facing) and is regarded as a true market leader. This presentation will provide insight into the ideas and practices which have helped develop Valleys Gymnastics into such a thriving social enterprise. Melissa Anderson is Managing Director of VGA Ltd. She has led the organisation to be the single largest gymnastics club in Wales and one of the largest in the UK. Melissa is also currently working with Us Girls Wales and Welsh Gymnastics. Prior to taking on her role as MD she was a Lecturer at Metropolitan University. 12.10 – 12.40 How can alternative forms of finance be used to develop trading activity in community and social enterprises within the sports and physical activity Matt Smith, Chief Executive, Key Fund

As grants become increasingly competitive to obtain, how can alternative forms of finance be used to develop trading activity in community and social enterprises within the sports and physical activity, to enable these organisations to become more sustainable in impact and financial terms? Matt Smith originally joined the Key Fund in 2002 as an Investment Officer, but went on to hold a number of roles within the team, until he was appointed as Fund Manager in 2007; a position he filled for 6 years. In 2013 he was seconded to the Big Lottery Fund to work in their social investment team on the development of a number of new activities. He returned to Key Fund in 2015 and was appointed CEO in early 2016.

12.40 – 13.10 Organic fundraising for sports clubs - The Power of Adult Panto Simon Plumb, Marketing Consultant - The SPA Group Ltd

The rugby club is on its uppers – membership is falling rapidly, the club is loss-making, open to theft, poorly administered and morale is on the floor. Sound familiar?

Desperate times need desperate measures so a small group of players and partners, to keep the creditors at bay, created a show to bring members back, attract non-members in and generate much-needed income. What started as a modest, one-night laugh grew to become an eight-night, £50k income-generating monster and, arguably, secured the future of the rugby club.

The Lymm Panto, from small beginnings, became a world-famous institution and is now in its 32nd consecutive year. The scripts are sold worldwide and the Adult Panto template, when adopted by other clubs, works time and again, helping sports clubs create a thriving, vibrant atmosphere and build year-on-year success. Furthermore, this fun-filled activity brings disparate groups together, creating cohesive teams, working for each other and the community. Simon Plumb is a marketing and PR consultant based in Lymm, Cheshire. He has written and produced the Lymm Panto for over 30 years and has a wealth of experience in helping sports clubs become more than the sum of their parts. Ross McLaren started off as a volunteer coach with Morton Community in early 2014, whilst studying Sports Development at University. He progressed through the coaching pathway before joining full time in summer 2017 as Employability Project Worker.

13.10 -14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 14.30 How to sustain challenging and innovative work Navjeet Sira, Director of Design and Impact, Change Foundation

The Change Foundation was founded in 1981 following the Brixton riots in south London, using cricket as a tool to promote community cohesion and peace during the conflict in the heart of the local community. For 39 years The Change Foundation has been delivering sport for social change programmes designed and led by young people creating opportunities for marginalised groups to make positive change using a variety of sports and mentoring.

This presentation will demonstrate how The Change Foundation has been able to sustain challenging and innovative work by sharing: - Insight into the charities business development journey - How to translate your USP’s to help you ‘sell’ your work - Analysing and using your network - Examples of meaningful and high performing partnerships - Insight into sector trends

Navjeet Sira is a specialist in designing sport for social projects for young people with 15 years of experience in international sport for development. Recently developing projects for the Lawn Tennis Association, FIFA 2022 World Cup and South African Rugby legend Bryan Habana’s foundation. Founder of the Women’s Sport Activist Academy.

14.30 – 15.00 Supporting football clubs in developing themselves into safe and sustainable community organisations Karl Lingham, Chief Executive Officer for the Hertfordshire Football Association

The Football Association (FA) and County FA’s Club Improvement Programme looks to support clubs in developing themselves into safe and sustainable community organisations and throughout the National Game Strategy 2018-21 this will be a key objective.

In Hertfordshire the focus has been to support all clubs, both, adult and youth, but success has come from developing ‘super clubs’ with 11 clubs in the County, having 45 teams or more within their structure.

This is the country’s largest network of clubs of this size and the presentation will look at how that has been achieved, its influences, who’s helped and what the future holds for this network of clubs.

Karl Lingham is Chief Executive Officer for the Hertfordshire Football Association and is responsible for the delivery of the FA National Game Strategy in the County. Karl was previously the County Football Development Manager, managing the football development team and overseeing facility investment into grassroots football. Prior to that Karl worked for the Football Association of Wales Trust in Cardiff.

15.00 – 15.300 Strength in Numbers Tony Jameson-Allen FRSA, Co-founder & Director, Sporting Memories Network CIC & The Sporting Memories Foundation

Founded in October 2011 to test out a possible intervention to engage older men in activities that might alleviate the impacts of loneliness, dementia and depression, this session will chart the journey of Sporting Memories from its roots of the two co-founders working with 10 care homes in West Yorkshire to a sustainable, income generating international organisation.

Having trained over 700 partner organisations and volunteers in the delivery of sports reminiscence, developing a credible evidence base and impact reporting, through academic collaboration, has seen over 130 free, community based, volunteer led, Sporting Memories Clubs established. Sporting Memories’ move to including accessible physical activities to its sessions has in the past 18 months attracted funding in excess of £1.5m from organisations including Sport England, the , and Public Health Wales, Life Changes Trust, Robertson Trust, Spirit of 2012 and Sport Scotland.

Eight years on from founding the organisation, Sporting Memories now collaborates with 100s of organisations to support former footballers and older fans living with dementia, depression or loneliness.

A former professional golfer, European tour caddie and psychiatric nurse Tony Jameson-Allen combined his skills and experience, passion for sport and the wellbeing of older people in co-founding Sporting Memories.

15.30 Summing up/Close

Sports Marketing Network, the organiser

Sports Marketing Network is a unique organisation where physical activity and community sports providers can share best practice on how to become vibrant, visible and viable and develop innovative and enterprising enterprises.

We have been described as positive disruptors and we have worked with a wide range of sport, physical activity and community organisations helping them to adapt, change and become better equipped to the changing landscape.

More than 4000 community sports providers from across the have participated in one of our Grow Your Club workshops, benefitted from 1:2:1 consultancy and mentoring, attended one of our conferences, participated in one of our webinars or read one of our Guides, so we have developed an unparalleled knowledge and understanding of the opportunities and challenges for the enterprise and innovation aspects of community sport and physical activity.

Thousands of people involved with community sport and physical activity across the UK and Scandinavia have participated in one of our ‘hot topics’ conferences covering issues such as Innovation and Enterprise in Community Sport, More Disabled People into Sport, More Girls into Sport and A Healthier Nation through Sport and Physical Activity, to name a few….

To book your place complete registration form below or go to

http://www.smnuk.com/the-role-of-sport-and-physical-activity-conference/

SMN’s renowned Grow Your Club Programme

The world of sport is no different from the world of technology or commerce where the rate of change is increasing all the time. Sports clubs must not only have the appetite for change, but must also implement these changes and adaptations or they will struggle to exist. The competition for people’s time and money has never been greater, and sport is under increasing pressure not only from other past-times such as social media, TV and E-games but more importantly, from inactivity!

SMN’s renowned Grow Your Club workshops have been attended by representatives from more than 4000 community sports club across England, Wales, Ireland, Denmark and Scotland. Svend has mentored dozens of community sports clubs and helped them to grow.

Packed with inspiring case-stories, easy-to-use templates and tools

You will have access to best practice from across community sport on how to develop more vibrant, visible and viable clubs, attract more people to your clubs, generate more income and welcome more volunteers

Eight key topics

• More players/athletes at your club • Improving your club’s internal communication • Generating more income for your club • How to raise the profile of your club • More volunteers at your club • Your club as a community hub • Better leadership and management of your club • Running an Open Day and Community Launch

Delivered in different formats to suit you and your clubs Workshops, webinars, guides, videos, club enterprise conferences and mentoring.

For more information go to http://www.smnuk.com/grow-your-club-programme/

Funding community sport Registration Form

A one-day conference,

4th September 2019, University of Hertfordshire

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