News

It's straight A's all the way...

We are pleased to announce that three more NGBs have proved that they are Active and Accessible, achieving a license to Accredit quality clubs... 

School-club links in Gymnastics

Gymnastics places a strong emphasis on the development and maintenance of effective and high quality school-club links to increase participation in the sport, especially with hard to reach groups and as a means of identifying future talent and providing pathways for competition.

The Future's Bright.... the Future's Clubs & Coaches!

BADMINTON England is placing clubs at the top of the agenda with an aspiration to create a hub of badminton activity where players, coaches and volunteers can progress, reach their potential and satisfy their own ambition within the sport.

British Cycling Moving Clubs to the Next Level ...by Jonathan Day

I have recently been appointed as National Development Manager at British Cycling. I joined British Cycling in January 2006 as a Regional Manager for the East Midlands region. Prior to that I was a County Development Manager for the East Riding FA for 4 years and I also worked as a Partnership Development Manager in a School Sport Partnership for 18 months. 

Spotlight on... Laura Brown

Laura Brown is the National Club Development Officer for Volleyball England. Laura joined the Association in April 2006, one of her key roles is the implementation and delivery of the national club strategy for Volleyball England which incorporates Volley123/Clubmark accreditation.

Case Studies

Delivering an ‘excellent’ Clubmark Accreditation Process

In October 2006 the ECB embarked on a journey to build capacity to support the ever growing ECB Clubmark process.  Over the past year the ECB has subtly shifted the emphasis of ECB Clubmark from not only accrediting new cricket clubs but placing an even higher importance on the maintenance of ECB Clubmark standards.  At the same time, the ECB revised its ECB Clubmark operating process (including criteria), aligning it to recent legislation and modernised sports development resources.  The creation of network of ‘ECB Clubmark Nominated Officers' began.

GolfMark – A great development tool for golf clubs... by Sharon Heeley

Having worked on a variety of development issues for a number of years, I can fully recommend the GolfMark/Clubmark process to any golf club.

GolfMark has always been an integral initiative within golf development and the benefits should not be underestimated as it can help golf clubs to increase their junior membership and junior players.

Operational update

Facts and figures 

The target is to have 4,000 Clubmark clubs by March 31 2008. This target has been set in partnership with the NGBs participating in Clubmark and the national Club Links Programme. Each NGB has a KPI in relation to Clubmark accredited clubs.

To date our records show that we have 2843 Clubmark clubs across 26 sports with another 3660 registered as working towards accreditation.

Excellent progress has already been made in Rowing, Rugby League, Volleyball and Triathlon. These sports have already achieved their 2009 Whole Sport Plan target of Clubmark clubs.

Triathlon and Canoeing currently have the largest percentage of Clubmark clubs, with over 50% of clubs with junior sections Clubmark accredited.

Cricket is the sport with the most accredited clubs with 876 ECB Clubmark clubs. The ECB target is to have 1,000 Clubmark clubs by 2009, almost one third of its clubs with junior sections.

Work is also underway to ensure that support is received from other partners within the delivery system. For example, the process for licensing CSPs to accredit clubs is currently in progress. It is envisaged that by 2010 these CSPs will be driving Clubmark, offering support to ensure that the distribution of Clubmark clubs by number, sport and geographic location is maximised. Currently the North West and South East regions have the highest distribution of Clubmark clubs with each region holding more than 450 clubs. 

Summary of accredited clubs

Congratulations to the clubs accredited in July