County Sports Partnerships Leading Local Legacy
The nationwide network of County Sports Partnerships (CSPs) are committed to working with their many partners to ensure a sporting legacy is in place in every community as a result of London hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. Here we list some of the legacy activities CSPs are supporting across the country and show you how you can get involved.
Leading Local Legacy
Legacy happens in communities, not in Board rooms, but the CSP network is ensuring that the promise of Olympic legacy is fulfilled, by bringing together a broad range of agencies from within and beyond sport, to share ideas and resources to promote and inspire sporting legacy activities. Contributing to strategic planning, promoting 2012 related local activities, raising funding for talented athletes, developing grass roots sport, supporting festivals and events are just some of the activities being stimulated locally as a result of the Games. Across the 49 CSPs, each is working to address local needs and seize local opportunities to achieve a lasting local legacy.
The network is supporting LOCOG (the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games), to promote official LOCOG legacy activities such as promoting the Inspire Mark in our communities, supporting the Torch Relay and linking into and using the marketing and promotional opportunities offered by 2012 Official Live Sites. In addition, the network is identifying opportunities to support 2012 Sponsors’ Activation Programmes and offering local opportunities to Games Maker applicants to volunteer in their communities.
The CSP network is also delighted to be playing a key role in helping deliver the official sports legacy programme Places People Play, providing the key local delivery network for Government and Sport England.
And of course, CSPs are continuing to deliver on their core commitment to support NGBs, helping them to deliver their legacy and participation programmes in targeted local areas.
A sporting legacy for schools
CSPs are working with Sport England, Youth Sport Trust and local partners to support the Governments’ plans for a new nationwide School Games that will include intra and inter school competition, culminating in a County finals and festival of sport and a national event in the Olympic Park in 2012. Pilot events are being held in the summer of 2011 in 9 county areas where the CSPs are playing a key role in delivering the County School Games events.
A sporting legacy for coaches
All CSPs are involved in the development of local coaching networks. A range of initiatives linked to getting More Coaches, Better Coaches, Coaching More Often are being driven by the coaching teams within CSPs, clearly linking to 2012 legacy objectives to enable more people to play sport.
A sporting legacy for local communities
CSPs will play a key role in ensuring local communities can create their own sporting legacy from the Games. The CSPs will help ensure local organisations are aware of the Places strand of Places People play, for example, promoting the Protecting Playing Fields initiative, which provides £10m of lottery funding to protect and improve hundreds of playing fields across the country, and the Inspired Facilities Initiative, which provides funding for modernising and extended clubs, opening up local facilities for community sport.
CSPs are leading the local delivery of the Sport Makers programme, part of the ‘People’ strand, where they will work with their local communities to recruit, train and deploy 40,000 ‘Sport Makers’ as the next generation of sports volunteers inspired by London 2012 to organise and lead grassroots sports activities.
As part of the ‘play’ strand, CSPs are also leading the delivery of the Sportivate programme, which provides funding to local clubs and community organisations to deliver sports activities for teenagers and young adults up to the age of 25, a key target group for sport, inspired by London 2012 to find new sports and activities to stay active. CSPs are also ready to support the Gold Challenge, helping people try out Olympic and Paralympic sports whilst raising money for good causes.
Many CSPs are leading and supporting a variety of initiatives to encourage adults to ‘Get Back Into’ sport. In some parts of the country, CSPs have accessed funding for Community Games and Village Games, which encourage local communities to take the lead in planning and organising local sport festivals for the whole community, inspired by London 2012. Many CSPs are linking with other organisations, such as Street Games to deliver sport legacy programmes in local communities, ensuring local population needs are taken into account – helping a range of people with specific needs such as those with a disability, women and girls, or those from Black and Minority Ethnic communities to access sport.
As we await further details of the Paralympic legacy programme due for release later in 2011, many CSPs are heavily involved in activities aiming to use the inspiration of the Paralympic Games to get more people with disabilities participating in sport. , including coordinating the local delivery of ‘Playground to Podium’, a national initiative aiming to identify and nurture young disabled people with potential, helping them find an appropriate sport and fulfil their potential.
A sporting legacy for business
Many CSPs are working with local businesses to help them engage with sport for mutual benefit and create their own sporting legacy. The key areas of Business Engagement CSPs are involved with include:
- Delivery of Active Workplace programmes to help businesses get their staff more active and healthy through challenges such as ‘pedometer challenges’ and working with the Corporate Games who offer multisport competitions for workplaces
- Schemes to encourage employers to support their staff to Volunteer in Sport
- Supporting Elite Athletes and fundraising for them
- Business support for grass roots sport programmes
- Business engagement in School and Community Sport Festivals
The above ‘menu’ of activities demonstrate how the CSP network is committed to delivering the promises made when London won the right to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games – helping to create a sporting legacy in every city, town and village in England.
For further information on the work that Wesport is doing to achieve a legacy in your area, please contact us.
To find contact details, or to discuss the work of the nationwide network, contact info@cspnetwork.org or visit www.cspnetwork.org
