Individual Impact
I think we’re nearly at capacity… Having aimed for 40 attendees for the Inaugural Community Sport for Development and Diplomacy Summit in Leeds on 16 & 17 September, we now at over 60 confirmed (utterly fantastic) participants. Thank you! I just hope that the sandwich kitty stretches… or else Tom Williams will need to cook up a massive batch of chilli to bring with him to the Summit.
We’re also close to finalising the speakers and panellists who will help guide discussions. I won’t name names quite yet, but I can’t wait to hear from some of the world’s leading practitioner experts about how community sport and movement leads to: better mental health outcomes in children, supports people with cancer, helps reduce crime and re-offending, supports child and youth development, prevents community tensions and promotes reconciliation, supports literacy and education outcomes, breaks down gender barriers, tackles loneliness, improves health, fixes problems around the house, helps the environment, creates links between international communities, builds bridges with marginalised communities….can be a diplomatic tool…. And why and how it’s fun.
One challenge I have set myself is to figure out how best to capture this impact which will flow from the personal stories that we’ll delve into at the Summit. How can we capture and celebrate the life changing impact on individuals by individuals and the ripple effect across their communities? It’s often far too easy to short-cut when it comes to measuring impact. For instance, talking of millions of people benefiting from a project when in truth these millions are numbers derived from whether someone may have theoretically had access to a social media post.
Speaking of impact, my daughter has just got back from a week at Outward Bound and is positively glowing with stories of teamwork, personal accomplishment, pride, confidence and happiness. You tend to know when impact is real.
With that in mind, thank you this week to Liam Scully at Lincoln FC with whom we spoke to about the impact of EFL in the community, during Lincoln’s defeat of Harrogate Town in the EFL cup. Thank you as well to Jason Morgan MBE Morgan at Charlton Athletic Community Trust for talking me through their foundation’s awesome impact overseas. To David Henderson, Dr Elizabeth Paddock and Josie Darwin at Move Against Cancer for their offers of support at the Summit and to James Mapstone and Justin Coleman at the Alliance of Sport in Criminal Justice for taking time to talk me through how they achieve impact both in the UK and overseas, working with their incredible network of community sport practitioners. A final word of thanks to Dane O'Donnell at RWS Global and to Nick Pryde at TTB Sports for their thoughts on how public, private and charitable sectors could work together for social good. Again, something we’ll pick up at the Leeds Summit.
