Driving economic recovery, improving health & wellbeing First webinar in a series of three

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Driving economic recovery, improving health & wellbeing

First webinar in a series of three

11 am 18th November 2020

 Listening, learning and collaborating

Book your place Click Here

This webinar will cover to be more user-focused demonstrate empathy and finding innovations and solutions that respond to human needs and user feedback.

We will focus on how to step into the user’s shoes and building genuine empathy for your target audience – we call it listening to people’s lives

The webinar will also cover how to pool a diverse variety of perspectives and ideas; this is what leads to innovation! How to collaborate with others including bodies and people from outside your normal network and sphere – creating shared value.

Claire Mclaughlin,

Co-ordinator, P4P Partnership for Procurement

Jude Reid,

SE & Sport Co-ordinator

Svend Elkjaer,

Founder/Director, Sports Marketing Network

Claire will cover how enterprising third sector organisation can form new partnerships or consortia; strengthen existing collaborations and ensure organisations build their capacity to better secure contracts or funding

Jude will cover how Senscot are working with a wide range of social enterprises across various sectors such as sport, health and tourism to help create synergy.

Svend will draw from his considerable experience in working with a wide range of community organisations to develop and deliver strong and sustainable collaborations.

Book your place Click Here

An informative and engaging webinar #MoreThanAPark

by | Events, Webinar by SMN

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Welcoming and enterprising parks and green/blue spaces
An informative and engaging free webinar

#MoreThanAPark

  5th November 2020 2pm GMT

Developing vibrant, visible and viable green/blue places for all

Putting parks and green/blue spaces at the forefront of thinking about how we emerge from the pandemic stronger – socially, economically and environmentally.

However, not all groups in society seem to embrace parks and green/blue spaces and they feel excluded from or afraid of – parks and green/blue spaces in urban areas has been available for many years and is being added to all the time. We also have to accept that the design of parks and green spaces perpetuate feelings of alienation and exclusion for some.

These groups are the same one which is less active and experience health inequalities.

Post Covid-19 this context also creates an opportunity to put parks and green/blue spaces at the forefront of thinking about how we emerge from the pandemic stronger – socially, economically and environmentally.

We also appreciate that budgets for the sector have seen a steep decline and there is increasing pressure for managers to deal with an increasing number of visitors and smaller budgets. As a result, often time and resources spent on income generation, marketing, community engagement and customer services are almost non-existent.

So, this free webinar will provide you with thoughts, tools to-dos to develop vibrant, visible and viable green and blue spaces for the whole community.

The webinar will cover areas such as

  • How to connect with and attract under-represented groups by working with Community Connectors and engaging with new partners across the community
  • How to use digital communication to excite potential visitors and users about the great experiences and benefits visits can bring and to give them a few tips of the expected behaviour
  • How to developing environmentally and sustainable, income-generating events that will also attract new users and visitors
  • Raising the profile of parks and green/blue spaces using social media
  • Engaging with new, young digitally-savvy volunteers who can also bring new ideas and connections to the sector
  • How to develop our parks into becoming community hubs and become #MoreThanAPark
  • How to run an Open Day and Community Launch
  • How to best assess your potential for working with community partners –   what are your assets, relationships and skills

Throughout the webinar, you will be presented with best practice case-studies on how managers of blue and green spaces have developed successful initiatives in this area.

This innovative webinar is aimed at representatives from wildlife trusts, parks, social and sports development and other departments at our local authorities, social prescribers, public health, trusts, social enterprises, community groups and health and wellbeing bodies.

It’s fascinating to see this link between exposure to nature and better health and wellbeing.

However, with the pressures currently facing primary care, many GP practices can’t spend the necessary time with a patient to link them with the most appropriate activity.
Research also indicates that many GPs are not familiar with local opportunities for prescribing outdoor activities

One can then discuss whether the providers should develop a higher profile and a better relationship with prescribers and/or should improve their outreach to providers?
Research into shinrin-yoku – Japanese forest bathing – for instance, suggested that various psychophysiological benefits can be gained from merely sitting passively in natural versus urban settings.

There are many ways of motivating and taking physical activity specific to local people in their local parks, green spaces or waterways.

There is no generic template for a good park or green space. The connections between experiences of nature, including diverse trees, plants and wildlife and mental wellbeing are strong. A green space that only serves as a children’s playground or a football training ground is not fulfilling its potential,
Also, while green spaces are important we should remember that ‘blue space’ matters too. Rivers, lakes and canals are all great places for people to enjoy paddlesports, swimming or just being near the water.

However, with the pressures currently facing primary care, many GP practices can’t spend the necessary time with a patient to link them with the most appropriate activity.
Research also indicates that many GPs are not familiar with local opportunities for prescribing outdoor activities

One can then discuss whether the providers should develop a higher profile and a better relationship with prescribers and/or should improve their outreach to providers?
Research into shinrin-yoku – Japanese forest bathing – for instance, suggested that various psychophysiological benefits can be gained from merely sitting passively in natural versus urban settings.

There are many ways of motivating and taking physical activity specific to local people in their local parks, green spaces or waterways.

There is no generic template for a good park or green space. The connections between experiences of nature, including diverse trees, plants and wildlife and mental wellbeing are strong. A green space that only serves as a children’s playground or a football training ground is not fulfilling its potential,
Also, while green spaces are important we should remember that ‘blue space’ matters too. Rivers, lakes and canals are all great places for people to enjoy paddlesports, swimming or just being near the water.

Main presenter Svend Elkjaer

Svend is Founder/Director of the Sports Marketing Network which is a unique organisation where physical activity and community sports providers can share best practice on how to become vibrant, visible and viable and develop innovative and enterprising enterprises.

More than 4000 community sports providers from across the have participated in one of our Grow Your Club workshops, benefitted from 1:2:1 consultancy and mentoring, attended one of our conferences, participated in one of our webinars or read one of our Guides, so we have developed an unparalleled knowledge and understanding of the opportunities and challenges for the enterprise and innovation aspects of community sport and physical activity.

Guest presenter, Natalie Ganpatsingh

Natalie is Founder/Director of Nature Nuture CIC whose mission is to support wellbeing and wildlife by connecting people with the urban parks, woodlands and waterways on their doorsteps. They partner across the conservation, education and health sectors to design interventions that support health and nurture communites who look after their local nature spaces.
Natalie believes that a big part of the solution lies in unleashing the symbiotic relationship between people and nature. She believes that people need nature, nature needs people and that there are multiple conduits to nature including the creative arts and technology.
In 2019 Nature Nuture won the national Institute of Outdoor Learning’s ‘Community Development Award’.
Natalie is a pilosopher, artist and Forest School Leader on a mission to connect urban communities with the nature on their doorstep.
 
She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a a member of Natural England’s ‘National Outdoors for All Working Group’ coordinated by Natural England.

Book your place Click Here

Connecting, enabling and driving Scotland’s Activity Economy – Conference and Webinar series

by | Conference, Events, Webinar by SMN

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Connecting, enabling and driving Scotland’s Activity Economy

18th November 2020 – 17th February 2021

Online and  Conference at The Barracks Conference Centre, Stirling FK8 1QZ

Connecting, enabling and driving Scotland’s Activity Economy

Presented by:

An innovative collaboration, through a conference with lead-in and follow-up webinars and guides designed to develop a genuine partnership between private businesses, social enterprises, charities and public sector bodies engaged in Scotland’s activity economy.

First webinar on 18th November with the conference at

The Barracks, Stirling on
17th February 2021

Our objective is to facilitate collaboration, debate, learning and connections to shape system-wide and nation-wide solutions.

We also believe that this period is the time and a huge opportunity to encourage change and innovation to help facilitate an exciting future
for the activity economy in Scotland.
Book your place for Connecting, enabling and driving Scotland’s Activity Economy conference SPECIAL rate for members of SAAF, Sported, Senscot and SEN

What is the Activity Economy?

Today, the £ Billion global activity economy incorporates such as sport, active recreation, health & wellness, and the technology, tourism and media related to those areas.

In Scotland, the through the activity economy thousands of people are powering the economic and social prosperity of the community. Whether it’s the thousands of people attending the Jedburgh or Inverness Half Marathons every year with the subsequent impact on the local economy, the impact on those providing short-term lodging for travellers, cyclists and ramblers or the impact on the local economy of arts, culture or food festivals, or the thousands of spectators at the Melrose Sevens Rugby, these are all interlinked.

Whereas, Silicon Valley is a leader in technology and London in financial services – Scotland possesses the natural resources – the people, environment and enterprise – to be a global leader in the activity economy.

But being a global leader rarely happens by accident.  It happens from planning and a commitment to pursuing that plan. Now, more than ever, does the sector in Scotland need to pull together, innovate and collaborate.

 

The key sectors within the Activity Economy are organised sports, active recreation, active travel, infrastructure, tourism, arts & culture, education and health & wellbeing.

Programme:

Three lead-in webinars

To introduce participants to the Connecting, enabling and driving Scotland’s Activity Economy collaboration they will be invited to participate in three one-hour long webinars which are designed to help them think and act in a new way where they maximise their opportunities for innovation, change and action.

The main objective for these lead-in webinars is to help participants be more open ready for the conference

 1. Listening, learning and collaborating  18th November 2020

This webinar will introduce participants to the concept of the Activity Economy and the objectives for the collaboration.

It will also cover how to be more user-focused demonstrate empathy and finding innovations and solutions that respond to human needs and user feedback.

We will focus on how to step into the user’s shoes and building genuine empathy for your target audience – we call it listening to people’s lives.

The webinar will also cover how to pool a diverse variety of perspectives and ideas; this is what leads to innovation! How to collaborate with others including bodies and people from outside your normal network and sphere – creating shared value and collaboration.

 

2. Raising the profile 16th December 2020

In today’s fast-changing world everybody involved with the Activity Economy must develop a better understanding and skillset of raising their profile, both individually and collectively. 

Individually, developing better use of digital marketing and community engagement are key factors in growing the reach and scope. Collectively, the Activity sector must develop a stronger profile and platform in order to ‘be invited to the table’.

This webinar will provide participants with clear ideas and tools on how their own profile and that of the sector as a whole, through thoughts, tools and to-dos.

 

3. A bias towards action 13th January 2021

This webinar will cover how to turn your best ideas into prototypes, testing them, and making changes based on user feedback. You must be prepared to repeat certain steps in the process as you uncover flaws and shortcomings in the early versions of your proposed solution.

This webinar will introduce participants to the ‘baby-step’ approach where many small steps eventually will help you make ‘that giant step for mankind’.

Most elite academies are quite clear that they focus on developing talent, whereas social walking groups celebrate companionship and fresh air. 

The challenge comes when there is no agreement within a club or group what kind of experiences they want to provide and who they want to serve.  Some coaches may want to win and others want to give people fun. 

It is imperative that work out who want to serve and what kind of experiences you want to provide.

Conference 17th February 2021

 The Barracks Conference Centre, Stirling

This one-day conference will bring together people from a wide range of providers and partners with the active economy.  Delegates will have the opportunity to listen to senior representatives, learn from grassroots entrepreneurs and great case-studies and get inspired to kickstart the activity economy in Scotland.

The conference will try and discuss questions such as:

  • How do we provide great customer experiences and grow the experience economy whilst at the same time meeting the strategic objectives of external partners and funders, whether they are from sport, health, tourism or hospitality?
  • How do we engage with the many partners, providers and bodies involved with the sector?
  • How can we engage and communicate better using digital communication tools?
  • Do we need new partners and providers and what role can the bodies play in that process?
  • How do we engage the local community and promote community leadership and play our part of the fabric of our local communities??
  • How do we help the current providers and bodies to become more innovative and enterprising and to start thinking ‘wrong’?
  • What does the provider within the active economy of the future look like? How can our current providers change and adapt to be relevant in a changing world?
  • How do we develop a more welcoming and relevant workforce?
  • How do we encourage innovation and enterprise to develop new initiatives to get people into the active economy?
  • What does real success look like?

Book your place

SPECIAL rate for members of  SAAF, Sported, Senscot and SEN

Book your place
Download Registration form as PDF

The future of the sports club, leisure trust and centre in the new normal world

by | Innovation and Enterprise, Webinar by SMN

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A free webinar with inspiration and ideas from leading experts and practitioners

The future of the sports club, leisure trust and centre in the new normal world

What options and opportunities we have to develop and invigorate our community sports providers and places

Several months in after the Covid-19 outbreak there is still considerable uncertainty as to how providers and places for community sport and physical activity will operate, adapt and progress in the future. Here at SMN, we have certainly seen a vast difference in the culture, performance and enterprise across the sector, with several providers adapting and engaging with their members and their communities, whereas almost went in hibernation.  Of course, that was also affected by local, regional and national circumstances. Of course, in many places, we are seeing redundancies and lay-offs which, no doubt, will also affect the skills and capabilities within our places for community sport and leisure.
Several months in after the Covid-19 outbreak there is still considerable uncertainty as to how providers and places for community sport and physical activity will operate, adapt and progress in the future. Here at SMN, we have certainly seen a vast difference in the culture, performance and enterprise across the sector, with several providers adapting and engaging with their members and their communities, whereas almost went in hibernation.  Of course, that was also affected by local, regional and national circumstances.
 
Of course, in many places, we are seeing redundancies and lay-offs which, no doubt, will also affect the skills and capabilities within our places for community sport and leisure.

So, these are challenging times but they also represent an opportunity for introducing new thinking, new partnerships, new technology and new ways of operating

 This webinar will highlight some of the options available, based on best practice from across many nations and will aim to inspire people within the sector on how to develop and evolve

SMN have brought in two leading community sport and physical leaders to present and participate in this webinar. One from a successful multi-sports club in Denmark and one from a successful leisure trust from Manchester, England.

The webinar panel team:

Christine Winding-Lauritzen, General Manager, Beder-Malling Idrætsforening (BMI) Christine has been instrumental in the amazing at this enterprising community sports club. Beder-Malling is a borough within Aarhus, Denmark’s second city with a population of approximately 10,000 and the club is an amazing hub for this community, with 3000 members enjoying sports and social activities. It is based at a local leisure centre, Egelund Idrætscenter which includes two sports halls, a 25-metre pool, tennis courts, football pitches, beach volley court and petanque courts. As a multi-sports club, it incorporates 16 different separate clubs and the whole culture is focused around both the enjoyment and benefits of being physically active and community aspects and bringing people together.

Their volunteer-run café runs all sorts of activities and brings in thousands of people and in 2019 was nominated for the Danish Sports Prize. Yes, a cafeteria! Due to all this great, led by Christine, the local council has decided to build more facilities at the centre, including a community library.

So, Christine certainly has a thing or two to say to about the possible future for the community sports club.

 Chris Rushton, Chief Executive, Active Tameside Tameside is a Borough in Greater Manchester with a population of around 225.000 people and is in the top 20% of the most deprived areas in the UK and where approximately 10% of the population have a disability or special need and roughly 10% of children live in poverty. Active Tameside has over the years has been transformed into a social enterprise with a strong focus on health and social outcomes. There is a wide range of leisure and sports facilities, but what makes the organisation stand out, is a wide range of (non-sports) partners and its work and delivery out in the community. The trust operates 9 leisure centres, 4 family attractions, 7 gyms, 5 swimming pools, 3 thermal spas, 3 creches, 5 cafes and 2 community cafes which serve 10.500 members and many others.

Chris Rushton, Chief Executive of Active Tameside, said: “We set out to support our communities as much as possible during the lockdown and I’d like to say a huge thanks to our services and staff for the vital work they have done and are continuing to do at a time which has been difficult for many.

Chris will have some exciting ideas and insights as to how leisure centres can become hubs for their communities.

The introduction will be given by Svend Elkjaer, Founder/Director, Sports Marketing Network (SMN) Svend has been running SMN for 15 years and has been described as a ‘positive disruptor’ within community sport and physical activity and has worked with hundreds of clubs, centres, sports bodies and community organisations helping them to become more innovative and enterprising and innovative.

Especially during the global lockdown has Svend been engaging with providers across the world sharing experiences on how best to develop a more able and agile culture and skillset to adapt to the rapidly changing world.

After the presentations there will be Q&A session and participants will have the opportunity to voice their opinions and put forward their ideas and experiences.
We reckon the webinar will last 45 minutes and it will be recorded and shared afterwards
Join the weebinar here

This webinar is free to attend, and members of the Sports Enterprise Network are also invited to book a 30-minute Zoom-session with Svend Elkjaer to discuss and get advice on how they best can adapt their particular club, centre or body to the new normal world.

You are more than welcome to send your questions and observations before the webinar to svend@smnuk.com