News

Netball clubs reap the rewards…

Many clubs across the country are recognising the benefits that achieving Clubmark can bring. England Netball recognise the importance of clubs gaining Clubmark status and include the requirements in its CAPS (Club Action Planning Scheme) Club Accreditation process. Two netball clubs in the South West and one in the East have experienced first hand some of the potential benefits of achieving Clubmark accreditation.

Clubmark helps club achieve five-fold increase in junior members

Windermere, Ambleside and District Angling Association (WADAA) has become the fifth angling club to receive the coveted Sport England Clubmark. The club has benefited enormously from achieving Clubmark accreditation and has experienced an almost five fold increase in its junior membership since becoming accredited.

Athletics club advocates the benefits of Clubmark 

Herts Phoenix Athletic Club recently achieved Clubmark accreditation, greatly supported by Neil Deans, Regional Performance & Development Coordinator. 

Recognising and rewarding Clubmark

On Monday 14th May Clare MacLeod, National Clubmark Manager and myself attended a presentation evening at the St Augustine and New Avenham Centre (SANAC) to acknowledge the good practice of two Clubmark clubs operating from the centre.

Spotlight on… Anne Adams-King

Anne Adams-King is Director of English programmes for the Amateur Swimming Association, this includes responsibility for the delivery of the Whole Sport Plan through the Regional and National teams, as well as Workforce Development and the evolving health agenda.

Case Studies

Can clubs benefit financially from Clubmark?

There are many benefits to achieving Clubmark, however, those of a financial nature are limited and tend to focus on lump sum awards upon achievement of Clubmark accreditation. However many sporting bodies, such as county sports partnerships and leisure operators are realising the value of an association with Clubmark and hence are looking at ways to recognise and reward accredited clubs.

Do sporting agencies recognise and reward Clubmark clubs?

Clubmark, the Sport England mark of high quality junior sports clubs, gives sports clubs of all types structure and direction. All the main sporting agencies involved in the delivery of sporting opportunity for young people endorse the national accreditation scheme.

There is increasing evidence of agencies, such as local authorities and other leisure operators, recognising and rewarding Clubmark clubs. This ranges from establishing numerical targets for Clubmark clubs to the promotion of Clubmark, raising its profile with clubs, partners and local residents.

Operational update

Stakeholder support 

Clubmark is now established within the NGB network and the process for licensing CSPs to accredit clubs is well underway. It is envisaged that in the longer term, CSPs will work in partnership with NGBs and other agencies to drive Clubmark, working with and through community sports networks (CSNs) to raise its profile and maximise the number, distribution and accessibility of Clubmark clubs by sport and location.

Although progress has been made, we recognise that there is still work to be done to embed Clubmark across wider sports networks - ensuring that agencies within them recognise and reward Clubmark clubs. In the light of this, our focus for the coming year will be to work with CSPs and other partners to:

• Persuade members of the education sector to insist that the clubs they work with when developing school-club links, that are not already accredited, work towards and acquire Clubmark.
• Encourage schools to give priority to Clubmark clubs when making their facilities available for community sport.
• Persuade leisure facility managers to adopt policy and implement operating practices that give priority when programming to Clubmark clubs.
• Convince leisure facility managers that they should set targets for an increasing proportion of resident clubs in their facilities to be or become Clubmark accredited and to incorporate this in their marketing and promotion; as a reflection upon the quality of the offer made to customers.
• Encourage local authority staff to adopt policies that advocate support for and reward clubs that achieve and retain Clubmark accreditation.

Clubmark contributes to the achievement of Government targets and its ambitions to raise participation levels among young people and deliver high quality PE provision within and outside school via the national Club Links programme. Convincing stakeholders and partners to actively support Clubmark will ensure that it is the industry standard that all agencies involved in junior sport insist upon.

Summary of accredited clubs

Congratulations to the clubs accredited in May...