Welcoming Clubs - developing a more welcoming culture across community sport and our clubs

An awareness, training, communication and award programme designed to increase diversity and inclusion across community sport and attract new people into our clubs

Community sports clubs are facing strong challenges to survive and grow in an increasingly competitive and demanding market. How to attract new members and retain the existing ones, become a hub of the community, grow sponsorship revenue, improve the social life of the club, increase media coverage, benefit from new technology and introduce new revenue streams...are all pressing concerns.

Community sport needs to adopt a new mindset and learn a new skill set - taking the best from successful social enterprises and the hospitality sector.?It has to recognise that sport operates in the experience business and that it is competing for people's leisure time and money and has to attract people away from online shopping, watching Love Island, apathy, etc. by providing better experiences for each customer segment.

?Life is changing and providers within community sport have to change with it, full stop. Or even better - if you listen to people and their lives you should be able to anticipate the changes in their needs and wants. You can then adapt your offering and services, so you are always that half a step ahead.?

?You are not 'just a sports club' You are in the experience business

?Our community sports club must become welcoming towards the WHOLE community

Despite continued efforts, and various initiatives, community sport and physical activity in England has not managed to significantly increase participation among people with different attributes and backgrounds (i.e. race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion) in a meaningful way.

Also, we continue to see those groups lag behind their white counterparts in terms of being physically active and living long and healthy lives.

The sporting landscape has changed enormously in recent years. Government and community expectations for good governance, integrity, equality, member protection and child safeguarding means that providing safe, fair and inclusive sporting environments is no longer an aspiration, but an imperative.

The demographic of the communities in which sport operates has also changed dramatically. Our culturally, linguistically and gender diverse communities are looking for sporting options and experiences that celebrate diversity, promote inclusion, and most importantly, make people feel like they belong.

We must develop community sports clubs that are welcoming to everyone and ‘not just people like ourselves’

We must develop pro-active behaviours, options and actions to make people from all backgrounds, ages and abilities feel welcome, respected and that they belong at your club/centre. Being inclusive is about following best practices for what sport/physical activity should be so that everyone can get the most out of it.

Diversity is the mix of peoples’ different attributes and backgrounds and a good way is to think about diversity is to think about your local community. Does your club reflect the diversity of your local community? Diversity is the mix of people, inclusion is trying to get this mix to all work together in harmony.

The Welcoming Club programme aims to improve on that situation

The programme

Collaborating with a wide range of community sports bodies from across the UK SMN/SEN will

1.???produce a guide on How to become a welcoming, inclusive and diverse sport club with advice ideas and case studies

2.???run three webinars with presentations from SMN and SEN with case-studies from community sports clubs that have benefitted from adapting a welcoming and inclusive approach

3.???set up a support network for community sports organisations to help them to develop into more Welcoming Clubs

To learn more, please get in touch via [email protected] Svend Elkjaer

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