Young Ambassadors: Inspiring Through Sport

With a year to go until the London 2012 Olympics nearing, one of the legacies of those Games is already paying massive dividends here in Wales. The Young Ambassador movement, in partnership with adidas, Youth Sport Trust, LOCOG and Sport Wales, was set up  to give young people more of a voice and to empower suitably proactive young volunteers with the opportunity to share the Olympic and Paralympic values with their peers to inspire them to take part in sport.

We hear from two such inspiring Young Ambassadors, based in Rhondda Cynon Taff, about their experiences so far.

London 2012 is fast approaching and it would appear that the Young Ambassador movement is truly in its stride.  As Young Ambassadors we act as role models to other young people in our schools and communities to inspire them to participate in sport and to raise awareness of London 2012 and the Olympic and Paralympic Values.

With around 300 Gold and adiStar Young Ambassadors around Wales examples of success stories are springing up all across the country and the importance of empowering young people is becoming prominent, with the results stretching across every sector of sport in Wales. This past week in particular has displayed the growing need for emphasis to be placed on the influence of young people in sport, especially Young Ambassadors.

We both attended the Sport Wales Stakeholder Conference and delivered a workshop entitled, ‘Getting every child hooked on sport for life – How we do it!’ This was a great opportunity for us to influence key decision makers across Wales and a challenge which we thoroughly enjoyed.
We explained how we both have very active roles in both the school and community setting, similar to every other Young Ambassador, and participate in various activities such as 5x60 activities, community coaching and other voluntary work within our school and local areas.

Natalie Davies, a fellow Gold Ambassador from Maesteg Comprehensive School, also attended the Conference and shared her amazing successes as a YA. At the start of the year she set up a dance school in her local community which has attracted over 60 children every week.   They recently entered and came third in the British Hip-Hop Championships which means they have qualified for the World Hip-Hop Championships in Las Vegas.  She certainly inspired us and if that doesn’t outline the impact of young people in increasing participation in sport and enthusing other young people to take part and enjoy sport then we don’t know what does!

In our opinion the conference was a great accomplishment. It was a chance to allow a large group of like-minded people from not only the sports sector, but also the health and education sectors, to congregate and share ideas and information regarding the implementation of the ‘Vision for Sport in Wales’. Also, the Conference was a brilliant chance for Natalie and ourselves to present what responsibilities Young Ambassadors can undertake and how we have a unique voice which has the power to impact sport in Wales.

Some might question the reliability and potential for young people to impact sport but it is becoming more and more evident that we have the ability to positively inspire others. By using London 2012 and the ‘Vision for Sport in Wales’ as catalysts our roles as Young Ambassadors are becoming a vital tool in achieving Wales’ ambitious aspiration of getting ‘Every Child Hooked on Sport for Life’. 

Although the YA movement is constantly developing and constantly progressing we still need people to listen and empower us. So please, take a risk and give us the opportunities to show you what we can do!

Adam Anzani-Jones and Ollie Smith,
Gold Young Ambassadors, RCT

Shoe Sale!!

1 Aug 2011 Update
Due to popular demand, we are extending the 20% discount on DVS, LAKAI, ES and EMERICA shoes till Aug 9th 2011.




We are having 20% discount off all our DVS, LAKAI, ES and EMERICA shoes from Monday 18 July till Sunday 31 July 2011. This promotion will run throughout all 3 outlets.

Terms and Conditions below.
-Promotion only applies to Nett priced products.
-No reservation during this period
-No *SCAPE/GOSSIP vouchers allowed
-Only Cash payment acccepted at *SCAPE for this promotion.
-No exchanges allowed.

New This Week!

9 steps to getting schools to sign up to School Sport Survey

Andrew Honey Jones, Active Young People Manager at Caerphilly County Borough Council, has been busy encouraging schools to complete the School Sport Survey – Sport Wales’ biggest ever census of school sport.

Here he describes his nine point step-by-step plan to ensure that schools in Caerphilly are on board:

·         First of all, I emailed all Headteachers to highlight the importance of the survey and how it fits in with the inspection framework. I also sent them the sample report so they could have a good idea of the data that would be collected.

·         It’s a mistake to email the generic school email addresses. It’s also a mistake to send blanket emails. Be personal and your email will be less likely to end up in deleted items!

·         In Caerphilly, sport sits in the Education & Leisure team so we work closely with School Improvement Teams We issue a weekly bulletin to all Headteachers so we used that to communicate the importance of the survey and asked them to get in touch if they required any assistance

·         We also met with the Education Advisory Group so they could push it during their visits to the schools

·         We’ve also offered to come in and administer the surveys. This helps the school spread the workload. Within an hour of that email being sent, 10 schools quickly responded. Now, we have 30 schools where we are going in to manage the survey process for them.

·         Next week, we’re presenting at the Joint Headteacher meeting for all Headteachers – primary and secondary. This will be another opportunity to push the survey. We will highlight the schools that have already done it and hopefully that will encourage those that haven’t.

·         We will also send the School Sport Survey updates to schools so they can see how they compare to others in their area

·         We have also told schools that we will only support ActiveMarc Cymru applications if they complete the survey. In my opinion, you can only be recognised as a high performing school for sport if you understand the importance of collecting this information.

·         My top tip is to get Headteachers on board. Their buy-in is absolutely critical.

For more information on the School Sport Survey visit http://www.schoolsportsurvey.org.uk/ Schools have just until the end of term to complete it.

My week at Sport Wales

Hi my name is Charlie Baines, and this week, for my work experience, I have had the amazing opportunity to visit various areas of Wales and learn what happens ‘behind the scenes’.

In started my week with a visit to Plas Meni; National Water sports centre for Wales, where I helped out with jobs that instructors at the centre needed help with. These tasks gave me a feel for what the instructors jobs involve. I learnt that being a water sports instructor doesn’t just involve teaching people how to use specific equipment, instructors also play a big part in organising the activities and checking equipment  to make sure that the experience of learning a water sport is an enjoyable one.

In contrast to my first day of Work experience, my second day involved PR and Marketing type tasks at Deeside’s Sports Wales office. Day two was also a great experience, where I began writing my press release for the Wrexham Bradley Raiders; a newly founded Rugby club dedicated to coaching youngsters of ages twelve and onwards. Simon Grant, PR and marketing officer at the office provided me with some document to help me with the PR tasks. This also gave me an insight into and what methods Sports Wales use to promote their sports and sports communities in Wales and how they do it. Later that day I attended a meeting with Jo Clay from the Deeside office where various sports related representatives who were deciding on ‘the way forward’ for sports activities in Wales. Many ideas were brought up, however the panel was unanimous in deciding that if they are to achieve their goal, and conform to Sport Wales’ Vision for Sport, all aspects of sport will have to unite to form one incredibly strong sporting association.

Wednesday was another amazing day, where I visited the National Sports Centre for Wales. I started my day at Wrexham train station, where I boarded the train to Cardiff and a few hours later, we arrived in the stunning Welsh capital. After a short walk through the park, we arrived at the national Centre; the building looks fantastic and is in an amazing location next to the river. A short walk through the winding corridors found me in the ‘meeting area’ where I met Brian Davis who kindly took me round the facility and let me observe some of the work that goes on within the National Centre. I had an amazing day seeing all that goes n and although I couldn’t change the PowerPoint successfully, it was a very inspiring visit.

Yesterday, I was based in the Deeside office again where Simon helped me finish my press release and correct my blog. I was also invited to attend a meeting with Simon and the communications team and what their big plans for promoting 2012 are (amazing plans which would give an equally amazing result when used).

On my final day, I was again in Plas Meni, where I was involved with the water activities. This further broadened my insight into what the instructors do at the facility.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my week, and experienced many different career types. Everyone I have met this week has been welcoming, friendly, encouraging and inspiring. My placement was secured by Graham Williams who has been brilliant and taken me to all my placement locations, despite the inconvenience I may have been to have to ‘look after’. Once again thank you to everyone, I have felt like a part of each organization and have been included in many different opportunities.

Laura's five conference highlights

Prof Laura McAllister

 Last week, we held our annual Stakeholder Conference – designed to unite key stakeholders from across sectors over a day and a half to discuss, debate and identify practical ways to deliver our shared agenda. Here, our Chair - Prof Laura McAllister - blogs about her conference highlights:

1.      New advocates for sport

Talking to people that either are new to the sports sector or new to our conference was a definite highlight. If we are to deliver the Vision for Sport in Wales, we need to reach out to new sectors - like education and health - that can use the leverage of sport. I believe that we cannot afford not to spend on sport – it helps community cohesion, improves health, skills & confidence. We need more people championing sport – whether it’s across local authority departments, in business or different government organisations.

2.      Keynote from Peter Keen, UK Sport’s Director of Performance

Peter reiterated a key theme of the conference: calculated risk-taking. He said, “The fear of failure needs to be your constant companion in the pursuit of excellence.” I think that this is relevant whatever sector you work in. The sports sector needs to be more edgy. It needs to be more comfortable with trying new ways of working and taking those calculated risks.

Only by trying new ways of working and applying the lessons can we begin to reach our aspirations. It was also useful that he was able to gain an increased understanding of what we’re doing in Wales and where we want to be (the no.1 nation on the basis of medals per capita at the Commonwealth Games!)

3.      Address from Huw Lewis, Minister responsible for Sport

We’re entering a hugely exciting time for Welsh sport. Not only do have two home Games on home soil - London 2012 and Glasgow 2014 – but we also have a Welsh Government whose programme links with our shared Vision. . This provides us with an unrivalled opportunity to drive sport forward. The Minister was clear that the focus is very much on outcomes and delivery and this will be their challenge to us. I was particularly pleased that the Minister stated that physical development is as important as reading and writing, which is going to be something that we will need to push with our colleagues in education.

4.      Natalie Davies, Young Ambassador & Panel Member

All of our speakers and panelists were first-class, but I must reserve special mention for Natalie Davies. In my opinion, she was the best panelist of the day. At 17, she is one of many Young Ambassadors across Wales that are encouraging their peers to take part in sport. And they’re doing a brilliant job! I have been so impressed by our Young Ambassadors and Natalie showed us how important it is to actively listen to young people. Her enthusiasm was boundless and she spoke from the heart. See for yourself in this film clip!

5.      Synergies

We were delighted to welcome Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Jewell and Children’s Commissioner for Wales Keith Towler onto our panel. There are so many synergies in our work. We have a shared agenda and we need to make the most of that. I want the sports sector to focus on creating new alliances with different sectors because I honestly believe we all want the same thing.

And as Keith Towler said, “If Wales can’t collaborate – who can?”

A strong theme of the conference was that sport needs to be more entrepreneurial. It needs to try different things. Chris Brindley talked about the importance of customer service if we’re to get every child in Wales hooked on sport for life. We need to think about we can reach new potential customers, what’s getting in the way of them consuming the product (sport!). How do we communicate? Are we maximising social media to reach our audiences? Do we have the data and information we need to judge our performance?

On a final note, I would like to thank everyone who attended and to those who contributed via our Twitter debate. If you’re not already on board the Twitter juggernaut, get involved! It’s a great way to raise the profile of the sector and to debate the important issues. You can follow @sport_wales to keep up to date and you’ll find me @LauraMcAllister.

Don't Miss Out!

Osian Williams is the Climbing Higher Programme Manager for Conwy County Borough Council’s Education Department.

As the deadline fast approaches for Welsh schools across Wales to get their pupils to fill in the national School Sport Survey, Osian talks about the benefits of taking part in the Survey.

The benefits of taking part in the School Sport Survey is that schools will get an in depth report of how many children are taking part in sport and physical recreation. So from a school perspective they’ll see how healthy their kids are.

They’ll also be able to get evidence of their school’s overall wellbeing.

"Linking with the new Estyn inspection process, the results of the survey can contribute to exemplifying pupil and whole school wellbeing, which are integral parts of the Estyn framework."

In terms of Conwy Council’s planning, here within Sports Development, without the data available we wouldn’t know where we needed to focus our efforts the most. Without the survey we can’t plan or shape our programmes and it becomes a guessing game.

This level of data lets us make informed decisions and gives us a very clear picture, within Conwy itself and within the areas of deprivation, of where we need to focus our resources the most.

We have been having partnership meetings with all the schools in our cluster and have made sure that the Survey is on the agenda. Also School Improvement Officers have raised the Survey with Head Teachers to help get them more engaged. That’s been very useful because we have had lots of calls from Heads asking for more information.

I’ve been undertaking that liaison role with schools directly but we have offered the services of 5x60 Officers if schools need further help. So far we have found that no schools have needed that assistance, which is encouraging.

"The feedback that we’ve had has indicated that a lot of schools can see the value of having their own school report. Yes, there was an acknowledgement that a lot of work was needed but the outcome was considered so beneficial that it outweighed the time expenditure."

Going forward it would be good to have training for local authorities prior to next year’s survey. We could then point people in the right direction and train school staff to see in advance what the survey looks like, so that it becomes a less time consuming process for pupils during class time.

The deadline for survey entries is 20 July. For more details about the school sport survey visit: http://www.sportwales.org.uk/research--policy/our-surveys/school-sport-survey-2011.aspx.