Mancunian Magic
First update this week, we’re at capacity for the Community Sport for Development and Diplomacy Summit in Leeds on 16 & 17 September so can sadly squeeze in no more participants. We’ll keep the comms coming in advance, during and after to loop in those unable to be there in person.
Speaking of being in the loop, thank you to Hayley Lever at Greater Manchester Moving for inviting me to join her fantastic global network of practitioners working for community health and wellbeing. Even though I’m from Leeds, there is something quite remarkable about the city of Manchester and its surroundings – Hayley and her colleagues are building international partnerships to share best practice, and I hope to sprinkle some Mancunian magic around the globe.
It was also a pleasure to spend time with Eugene Minogue, the Executive Director at Play England, Cathi Farrer-Mitchell-Mitchel who heads up Park Yoga (want to launch Park Yoga in Manchester at Heaton Park Saul Mearns??), Richard Davis-Boreham at GM Moving and Rachael Weston at Yorkshire Sport. It brought home to me how varied and powerful the community sport eco-sphere and network is around the UK. I can’t wait to see it in person in Leeds next month.
A final word of thanks to Arran Davis’ for talking me through his research at the University of Oxford into the relationship between social inclusion and physical and psychological health. It sparked many links to areas of work and people Tom Williams and I have encountered on our Participate journey so far. I look forward to seeing how Arran’s thinking informs what we do next.
A final mention to all those who got their GCSE results on Thursday – my daughter was one of them. No specific link to community sport (though of course educational attainment and physical activity go hand in glove….), just some recognition of five years of learning, of hard work, stress, happiness, disappointment, excitement and everything else in between coming to a head. Whatever the result, there are always doors to open out there!
