The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) is about to reveal key details of a series of landmark reports that delve into the changing trends in sports participation.
These reports will be unveiled at the Power of Sport and National Synthetic Surfaces Conference and Expo in Sydney on the 3rd to 4th of June 2014, which is a dual conference that will gather some of Australia’s key sports organisations to discuss a core issue that has impacted them over the past 50 years.
The three reports that were completed over 18 months concluded that formal sports participation for many sports clubs is reducing while social and recreational participation is increasing significantly.
When the ASC shares the results of its research, key sports bodies from across Australia as well as various government and not-for-profit organisations will share how they are developing programs, events and initiatives and activities to encourage greater participation in community sport.
These sports organisations include Tennis Australia, Hockey Australia, AFL, Australian Rugby Union, Skateboarding Australia, Football NSW, Cricket NSW, Western Bulldogs and Fitness Australia.
However the sporting sector appears confident that it can meet these challenges and create much needed solutions.
Once such organisation is Belgravia Health and Leisure Group, which manages sport and recreation assets valued at $3 billion for state and local government and provides programs and activities to over 20 million participants at their centres annually as well as promoting more than 70 commercial health and fitness centres across Australia.
The Group’s chairman Geoff Lord said that his organisation is perfectly suited to encourage and capitalise on the change in participation patterns that “we have seen over the past decade or so”.
“We strive to meet the local community needs and have many examples where our centres embrace local community sports organisations and integrate them into our recreational programs or provide pathways from our own recreational programs into the club structures,” Mr Lord said.
He said that the Group has been using the knowledge it’s gained from teaching 30,000 people to swim and “squad” participants weekly into local swimming clubs to work with many other clubs.
Mr Lord will be sharing Belgravia’s views on how to grow sports participation as well as Belgravia’s thinking for how community sport and recreation organisations can work together for the future of the communities health and wellbeing.
To register visit www.nssce.com.au or phone 1300 789 845 for more information.
Comment below to have your say on this story.
If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@governmentnews.com.au.
Sign up to the Government News newsletter
