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Sport, Skills &
Enterprise
15th May 2008
Bramall Lane,
Sheffield United FC
A
one-day conference on how to grow
vibrant, visible and viable community
sports clubs by developing stronger enterprise skills
If
community sports clubs are to grow they will have to get away from “just being
sports clubs” and benefit from introducing some of the principles applied within
social enterprises.
Society needs our community sports club to prosper.
We need them be places where people will want to play and exercise, become
volunteers and generally become hubs for their communities, in short become
‘places where people live their lives.’
In order
to deliver strong sports at all levels sports clubs must improve their
enterprise operations and also become more welcoming and customer focused.
Also, as the pressure to increase participation intensifies governing bodies
are becoming much more pro-active towards providing practical support for their
clubs for them to become better equipped to attract and serve new players and
members.
This
conference will put forward innovative ways forward for community sports clubs,
discuss the notion of sports clubs become social enterprises, how to link up
with other community groups and how to
transform from
hand-to-mouth ‘we-are-just-a-sports-club’ approach and introduce the notion of
community sports enterprises.
Speakers
will provide background thinking, report from real live stories, discuss how to
balance the needs of the various stakeholders and how to provide support to
community sports clubs as to how they can grow into sustainable enterprises.
Programme & speakers...
Chair
Yuri Matischen
Managing
Director,MLS
Social enterprises and community sports clubs
Ceri Jones
Senior
Policy Officer
Social
Enterprise Coalition
Working with education, health and other related services as a way forward for
sports clubs
Irshad Akbar
Consultant
The
Sector Solutions
Stephen Harrison
Stephen
Harrison Snooker Academy
From community sports associations to community enterprise
Kim Hazeldine
Head of
Community Sport & Active Lifestyles
South
Gloucestershire Council
What can community sports clubs learn from their professional counterparts?
Simon Argall
Operations Director
Sheffield
United
From volunteer sports club to community sports enterprise
Svend Elkjaer
Managing Director
Sports Marketing Network
Community regeneration and sports development as a medium of engagement in
Belfast
Peter Shaw
Chairman
Belfast
Community Sports Development Network
Ronan McKenna
Community Sports Development Officer
Lower
Ormeau Residents Action Group.
15.15 Social enterprises in the culture sector – lessons for community sport
John Wright
Director
of Policy & Strategy
Yorkshire
Culture
Delegate Fees
Delegates will receive a memory tick with full delegate documentation,
including speaker presentations and lunch and coffee breaks
Standard
rate
£245.00
+ VAT (Total £287.88)
Community clubs, social enterprises, charities
£155.00
+ VAT (£182.13)
Additional delegates from same organisation save £30 per person
Subsidized rate (contact Organiser for details)
£95 +
VAT (£111.63)
This
conference is organised by the
Sports Marketing Network, the Network for people involved with the
commercial, community and marketing issues across all sports, be it club,
governing body, sports deliverer or if you are working within informal sports.
SMN
works with sports clubs and organisations on how they can make their sport and
clubs vibrant, visible and viable. It publishes newsletters and guides,
organises seminars and help clubs with their commercial and community
activities.
450+
sports clubs, governing bodies, local authorities and sports organisations now
enjoy membership of SMN and more than 1300 people have participated in our
seminars and events over the last three years.
SMN has
also advised, consulted and trained a number of organisations and public bodies
including the RFU, FA, Sport England, England Volleyball, British Gliding,
Sports Council Wales, UniBond League, England Netball, Welsh Rugby Union,
British Speedway, England Squash, Universities, several County Sports
Partnerships and 45+ local authorities
As a
member you’ll receive Sports Marketing Newsletter 10 times per year,
discount on the Network’s reports, handbooks, surveys and conferences and unique
access to networking events where you can share ideas best practice.
Annual membership is only £58. As a delegate to
this conference, you will automatically receive three months FREE membership.
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Everyone’s a winner at
York City
Blue
Square Premier Club York City FC runs a 50/50 draw on match days, just
like many other clubs. Normally, the winner receives around £300 as
does the club, however the club has added a nice little feature. Each
ticket, which costs £1 also includes a 20% off voucher for the local
Domino’s Pizza, so in most cases, if you were going to buy a Domino’s
Pizza anyway the 50/50 ticket is then free. We do know of a number of
clubs who report of good link ups with Domino’s. Raffles for pizzas at
half-time and joined up text/email campaigns are just two of the
successful ideas SMN are aware of. There are around 800 Domino’s in
the UK so chances are there is one or several near your club. So if
you have already linked up, do it now.
Sports Marketing Network UK
Car wash in your car park
One day the head of the Juniors at Swedish ice hockey club Lund IK was
walking through the car park outside their arena when he realised how
filthy most of the cars parked there were. At the same time he was
trying to raise money for the U-16s trip to Canada so he suddenly
realised that here was a money making opportunity for the Juniors. He
then launched an initiative where people parking their car in the car
park during a first team match could have their cars washed and/or
valletted by the Juniors.
Quickly, the scheme became very popular and it now continues long after
the Lund IK Juniors have been to Canada.
We can think of many clubs where a similar scheme would work.
Our local Arc car wash charges around £5 per wash and £15 per full
valletting - so if you just serviced 100 cars at an average at £10 at
20 home games per season…the total revenue would be £20,000.
That would pay for lots of kits and trips. It would
certainly be very popular with your spectators.
How
Brighton RFC used a buddy system to make new players feel welcome
Club member Martin McTaggart explains
“Brighton RFC used a buddy system when new players attended the club.
This was done through personnel who were approached by the committee.
Their job was to look after the new recruits through various means, one
was to make sure they had a contact number and person for lifts etc.
another was to look after them after training and matches.
This
was done with a very enthusiastic President at the time who organised
beer tokens for the new players and buddies at the club and on away
trips sometimes money was given to look after the new players. The
buddy was selected by age so that there was a common interest. The
buddy was not asked to but the natural link was to invite each other
out when on other social occasions and some strong bonds were forged.
For example,
I am
still in touch with a Welsh lad who moved back to the West Country. I
go and stay with him and he has stayed with me often.”
Colwyn Bay FC’s “Kids for Free” scheme is sponsored by local college.
Commercial Manager Carol Beard stated: " We want to make Volwyn bay FC
accessible to children, family and the community as a whole.. We
pride ourselves on being a family club and the decision to amintain
the scheme for the season reflects our commitment to encourage mnore
youngsters to the football club. It is a fantastic news that Coleg
Llandrillo Cymru have agreed to sponsor the scheme.”
The
scheme provides free admission for all under 14s accompanied by an
adult to all home league matches.
Saints and Saracens get into dance
The Watford and Northampton based Premiership rugby union clubs are
growing their reach beyond rugby union. Over the last couple of years
more than 3,000 girls have participated in Saracens cheerleading
programme run through the Saracens Sport Foundation.
Now
their neighbours Northampton Saints, in a first for the club, is
launching two one-day dance workshops at the club in co-operation with
local theatre school, The Performance Company.
One day is aimed at 7-11 year olds and the other at 12-16 year olds.
Each
day costs £55 with a £10 discount available for members of Bernie’s
Gang, the Saints’ Junior Club where members for £10 per season receive
loads of benefits.
Clubs
can now get Full House
Full
House, a new service designed to help semi-professional sports club
grow their gates and develop their commercial, community and
communication activities has been launched.
Full
House is a partnership between two of the leading sports marketers in
the UK, Paul Oughton of Influx Marketing and Svend Elkjaer of Sports
Marketing Network.
Many smaller semi-professional clubs are struggling to break even and
often their survival depends of the support and generosity of a few
individuals. Many clubs are seeing declining gates and as the ‘credit
crunch’ bites clubs must take a seriously look at how they develop
their commercial, community and communication activities.
How do you grow your gate? How do you make your match day experience
more exciting? How do you use technology to engage with your
supporters? How do you develop community activities and get them
funded? How do you attract new private and public partners and
sponsors? How you develop new revenue streams? How do grow the profile
of your club?
Full
House can act as an outsourced commercial, community and communication
department so clubs can either benefit from the complete marketing,
communication, sales and community package, work on specific projects
you want us to help you with or work alongside and train your current
team
Here’s
what one very satisfied client is saying:
Steve
Nell, General Manager, Swindon Wildcats Ice Hockey Club, who play in
the Premier League said: “After working for Swindon Wildcats for just
two months Full House have already more than proved their worth. The
gates are already up and on Saturday we had our biggest ever takings.
Wonderful! And we had a full VIP area including representatives from
nine potential sponsors who all enjoyed the atmosphere. And this in a
league where the gates are generally down.
They have some excellent ideas and have already implemented some of
them and we are now going to sit down and review the situation and plan
for the next season, which is going to great,“ ends Steve Nell.
For further information about Full House contact:
South
Paul
Oughton
Influx
Marketing
Tel:
01305 755 607
Email:
paul.oughton@influxmarketing.co.uk
North
Svend Elkjaer
Sports
Marketing Network
Tel:
01423 326 660
Email;
svend@smnuk.com
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