Sports Club Support News Archive

Dec 2011 - Runningsports and Clubmark Under Review

Runningsports and Clubmark are Sport England schemes for supporting the development of high quality sports volunteers and sports clubs and it has been announced that they are under review and set for some important changes. Sport club committees, particularly Clubmark accredited ones, in the Horsham District take note because these changes will be coming your way soon! 

The briefing note on the changes reads as follows:

"This is a note to update you on the progress being made with the new combined runningsports and Clubmark programmes. Knight Kavanagh Page (KKP) has been appointed to manage these on behalf of Sport England (read the statement here).

KKP has been tasked to strategically overhaul runningsports - completely revising the activities and resources for, and the communications methods use to engage with, what will be a substantially broader cross section of volunteers, clubs and agencies. Concurrently, we shall review Clubmark to modernise and expand the range of quality accreditation options available to affiliated clubs and mechanisms to enable others outside the NGB sphere of influence to set themselves and then promote higher standards.

They will align closely to the delivery of Sport England's objectives and outcomes and programme delivery will entail working closely with and through partners (building on KKP's established practice) to ensure that both accreditation and volunteer improvement programmes truly reflect and are responsive to, the current and future needs of people and agencies in the sector. To achieve this we shall be taking a more proactive, market driven and needs led approach.

The plan is to revise and extend the reach, range and usefulness of activities, support packages and resources available on a flexible basis to sports volunteers in both NGB linked and more informal settings (including the new cohort of Sport Makers) - doing more to ensure that we reach people from all localities, communities and walks of life.

We shall also, with Sport England and partners, review whether and how we can take forward and/or extend the ambit of the present Clubmark accreditation programme – further raising the profile of high quality clubs - for the whole community.

Please feel free to cascade this information to any other interested parties and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Kind regards
Clare MacLeod
Strategic Operations Manager KKP
On behalf of the Centre of Excellence for Volunteering, Sport England