Helping clubs working towards Clubmark accreditation to access the courses needed to gain accreditation!

This year, Cumbria Sport Partnership along with a variety of partners, including Local Authorities and National Governing Bodies of Sport, has pulled together and published a comprehensive programme of courses to help upskill and increase the number of volunteers working in the sports field within Cumbria.  

By having such a wide range of courses available to the club volunteers locally we are able to demonstrate how much we value them. The Sports Workforce Education Programme rewards volunteers by all courses being offered at a subsidised rate or by having a bursary attached to it. This programme enables Cumbria Sport to demonstrate how much we value our volunteers, have continued engagement with them and therefore encourages them to stay with their club as their experience is enhanced. The programme helps to retain our community volunteers as well as reward them.

One of the main reasons for developing the programme was to enable clubs working towards Clubmark accreditation to access the courses needed to gain accreditation within their local area or elsewhere in the county which is the past had not always been possible and many clubs fell away from the Clubmark agenda because of this.

Not only have the courses required for Clubmark been scheduled across the county, throughout the year (along with a wide variety of other courses e.g. sports specific courses) but all the courses have been heavily subsidised so that as many people are able to access them as possible.

It is hoped that this will lead to an increase in the number of Clubmark clubs across the county in a wide variety of sports. All types of volunteers involved in sport in the county are, through this programme able to access opportunities to upskill themselves which in turn will hugely benefit their clubs as well as other members e.g. juniors

The initial year of the programme was launched in April and will continue until March 2010. A variety of courses took place in April, including one of each of the courses which are part of the Clubmark criteria and all were at full capacity or very close to it showing there is a real need for these opportunities in the county.

Cumbria Sport Partnership is keen to develop the programme further in the future. If anyone has any ideas of courses that they would like to see included in the programme please get in touch with Aileen Cubbon at Cumbria Sport Partnership on 01228 221262 or email aileen.cubbon@cumbriacc.gov.uk