Five-time Olympic Gold medalist, Sir Steve Redgrave, this week unveiled a new way for people to become sporting heroes in their local community. Sir Steve, our greatest Olympian, has joined forces with Sport England to launch Sport Makers, a programme for everyone who’d like to make sport happen for their friends, neighbours or colleagues.
Sport Makers aims to inspire over 40,000 people to get involved, with each of them spending at least 10 hours organising or leading sporting activities. It is open to anyone aged 16 and over.
Backed by the British Olympic Association and £4 million of National Lottery funding, Sport Makers is part of the Places People Play legacy programme that is bringing the magic of a home Olympic and Paralympic Games into communities across the country.
Sport Makers are the people who directly make sport happen at the local level. Some Sport Makers will organise sport for themselves and their friends, colleagues and neighbours. Others won’t be taking part themselves, but will be doing all those other things that make the sporting activity possible.
Every Sport Maker will be invited by their county sports partnership to an informal and interactive workshop where they’ll gain the skills and opportunities to get involved in sport in their area. Sport Makers will be introduced to organisations that need their help, and join forces with others who want to make sport happen locally. There’ll also be opportunities to meet top athletes and plenty of incentives to stay involved. These Sport Makers will organise and support hundreds of thousands of new hours of grassroots sport across the country. While doing so, they will bring the Olympic and Paralympic values to life in every community.
By taking part in Sport Makers, and completing their 10 hours, they could secure tickets to the greatest show on earth: Sport Makers and London 2012 are working together to give people the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games.
University and college sport departments, volunteering programmes, student services and student unions could all play a role in supporting the Sport Makers programme:
1 Develop new deployment opportunities at your college or university for new Sport Makers and post these on your county sports partnership’s (CSP) online system.
2 Campaign to recruit Sport Makers - encourage students and staff who have not volunteered in sport before to become a Sport Maker. You may wish to use the attached communications. Ask your current sporty volunteers to encourage their friends to get involved and become a Sport Maker too – get them to visit www.sportmakers.co.uk where they can book on a workshop.
3 Promote local Sport Maker workshops and conventions – find out from your local CSP when and where these will be taking place and promote to students.Visit http://www.wysport.co.uk/know/news/sport-makers-olympic-athletes-inspire-at-west-yorkshire-launch-e/ to read a useful article and watch the video which helps bring to life the pilot conventions and the roles of the Sport Makers.
4 You may even wish to host a workshop or convention at your college or university – contact your CSP if you are interested in doing this.
5 For further information please visit www.sportmakers.co.uk