Regional Sporting Champions
About the Regional Sporting Champions project
Volunteering England have now produced the Sporting Champions' evaluation and case studies for the 2011-12 project.
Sport England funded work by Volunteer Centres to deliver direct support to grassroots sport clubs around the country through the Sporting Champions project. Eight Volunteer Centres worked to increase the level of support that is given to sports organisations in their local area; these organisations may have not recognised how they can benefit from working with their local centre.
The aim was to help sports clubs to attract, retain and develop a more diverse and sustainable volunteer workforce, which in turn increased the opportunities for the adult population to be more physically active.
The Volunteer Centres
A new set of Sporting Champions have been selected in June 2011. These are:
- Herefordshire Volunteer Centre
- Volunteer Centre Salford
- Voluntary Action Leicestershire
- Volunteer Centre Swindon
- Volunteering Bradford
- Woking Association of Voluntary Service
There are also two Volunteer Centres that have been working with the project since 2010, who are acting as mentors to the newly selected Sporting Champions. They will share their experience and knowledge and help the new centres to identify the best practice in engaging with sport. They will also be on hand to give some real insight into how their core services have had a positive impact on the sports organisations they have worked with.
The mentor Volunteer Centres are:
The value of volunteering in sport
Recent statistics from Sport England’s Active People Survey have revealed that nearly two million adults contribute at least one hour a week to volunteering in sport – equivalent to a full-time workforce of over 80,000 people.
The impact that volunteers have in grassroots sport is significant. Almost half of general participants questioned in Sport England’s Satisfaction Survey rated ‘the competence and commitment of the volunteers I came into contact with in my sport’ as ‘important’; this jumped to 77 per cent for active club members and 87 per cent for talented athletes.
