SMN deliver a wide range of workshops for both volunteers and professionals involved with community sport and physical activity and below you will find a selection of the topics we cover.

All our keynotes and workshops are delivered personally by Svend Elkjaer, the Founder and Director of the Sports Marketing Network

How to become an Activity Grower and help inactive people become physically active

A one-day seminar – practical, innovative and interactive

21^st June 2017, Stirling Court Hotel, University of Stirling 9.30 – 15.30

There is an increasing focus on how community sport and physical activity providers can improve the way they engage with people who are not currently active.

Inactive people want to enjoy themselves, have fun, improve their skills and be part of a welcoming social and sporting experience.  Yes, if possible, they want to develop their skills, but they want to do so in an engaging way; they don’t want to be put under undue pressure from an over-ambitious and zealous coach.

So, we need to distinguish between ‘sports coaches/fitness instructors’ and the ‘activators/hosts’ who get inactive people into regular activity: We call them Activity Growers.

An Activity Grower is a person who removes the barriers inactive people experience when wanting to become more active and then focus on keeping them motivated, engaged and active.

Hence, The Activity Grower Academy…where you can learn how best to get inactive people physically active.

 Introducing the How to become an Activity Grower workshop

This workshop provides participants with an introduction to the thoughts, tools and to-dos on how to get inactive people more active:

How to engage with local communities and link up with inactive people based on their age, health condition, ethnicity, demographics, and/or location

This module covers how best engage with and involve your local community and become than ‘just that fitness place’ and become a hub for your community:

Welcoming people in all shapes and sizes 

Being welcoming is about developing and maintaining a culture where everybody communicates and forms some type of relationship within your environment; be they long- standing participants, newcomers or guests. We must developing a ‘welcoming’ philosophy and see your activities through the eyes of the newcomer.

Providing experiences which all types of participants can enjoy 

The focus is to ensure that people with different needs all feel they are being looked after and where members, parents, supporters, staff and volunteers are all focusing on creating great sporting and consumer experiences. We are all different, so what you think is a great experience, may not be the same to a 56-year-old ‘never active’ or a 42-year-old ‘returner’.

How to tell your story through photos, videos and hashtags. From flyers to Instagram – efficient and effective communication 

Successful providers of physical activity programmes all use social media extensively. They know that to build engagement and loyality they have build a community, both on – and off-line.They know that creativity, honesty and imagery are key ingredients in that process and they are always willing to innovate and learn.

Developing the enterprise culture and skills which can help ensure long-term sustainability 

Some physical activity programmes are project-funded whereas others are funded by user-payments. Unfortunately, we have seen too many cases where providers have ignored the long-term financial sustainability of their work and have had to stop the otherwise great work they are doing. Other providers are able to fulfil their mission of getting inactive people active while running a viable enterprise. So how do they do that?

This is a hands-on workshop which will provide you with literally dozens and dozens of proven ways you can help inactive people become physically active. Just exciting, positive and proven action points drawn from best practice from enterprising providers of physical activity, at all levels.

Engaging workshops for volunteers and professionals within community sport

SMN deliver a wide range of workshops for both volunteers and professionals involved with community sport and physical activity and below you will find a We deliver bespoke workshops and keynote presentations, developed in consultation with our client/hosts, so if you have a specific request please get in touch.

We are certain we can help to develop and deliver exactly what you are looking for…whether you are looking for a 20-minute keynote or series of Grow Your Club workshops

Over the years SMN have worked with a wide range of organisations including local authorities, universities, colleges, community sports clubs, governing bodies of sport, community sports, trusts leisure trusts, informal sports providers, community sports enterprises, community groups and other community sports providers and professional associations.

We have run Grow Your Club workshops for more than 4000 community sports clubs across the UK and Denmark.

Grow Your Club: A complete package for you and your clubs

Increasingly, we deliver a comprehensive club inspiration support package for governing bodies of sport, local authorities and sports councils.

Introductory 3-hour workshop(s)

The club representatives are introduced to the concept of making their clubs more vibrant, visible and viable and to the programme.

Application process for clubs to join the programme

Clubs complete a simple questionnaire where the main focus is on their culture and willingness and capacity for change.  The clubs that are demonstrating the strongest desire to move forward are then selected to participate in a one-to-one mentoring and support programme.

Bespoke club consultations

We then visit each club for 2-3 hours and using our bespoke tools we help the clubs areas where they can best utilise their current and future resources, be it volunteer development, member recruitment and retention, income generation or raising the profile.

Remote mentoring

Having agreed specific action points with each club we then follow up and stay in touch using email, ‘phone or Skype.

Possible webinars

In some cases we run specific webinars and in some cases the clubs participate in our regular, open webinar

Why not host your own workshop?

If you are local authority, governing body, sports council or any other sports organisation you should how you can use SMN to help your partners and deliverers to become welcoming, innovative and enterprising. You will notice the workshops in our Grow Your Club and Activity Grower programmes, but we are more than happy to deliver a bespoke workshop suited to your needs.

Our workshops are fun and interactive and packed with inspiring case-studies backed up with templates and action points, so the participants can use the information there and then!