This year’s annual Step into Sport Conference was delivered during October and November, hosted at Myerscough College, Preston. Over 180 young leaders from the thirteen school sport partnerships in Lancashire attended despite the cancellation of the second day due to a power cut.
The conference, organised by Lancashire Sport Partnership has been co-ordinated around the Step into Sport programme, where it is used as a way of preparing the young leaders for volunteering in their community. This year, the young leaders were offered a variety of taster sessions throughout the day, ranging from Multi Skills to Dealing with Challenging Behaviour workshops. Lancashire Sport Partnership liaised with the Partnership Development Officers in Lancashire and took the decision to offer alternative workshops that would suit all. In previous years accredited workshops have been delivered, but the decision against this was a positive step and resulted in some fantastic feedback.
On both days during the lunch hour, a number of National Governing Bodies and other agencies were involved in the Market place, where they displayed information regarding volunteering opportunities in their area. This was extremely useful for a large number of young leaders who left the conference with ideas of potential placement providers to volunteer in the community.
During the latter workshops, our special guest, Sporting Champion Maria Costello participated in number of workshops, jumping through hoops and over hurdles and was a tremendous sport. Maria is known for being the Fastest Woman EVER to lap the Isle of Man TT, and she commented on responsiveness and capability of Lancashire’s young leaders:
“All the participants at this conference have already shown their potential to go on to be the next generation of coaches, officials etc. I encouraged them to continue in their roles as volunteers and I worked more at inspiring them to reach their goals and stressed the importance of volunteers in sport. The presence of my race bike always helps make an impact I think it made them aware of new sports and that gender stereotyping can be challenged”
The overall feedback of the conference improved from the previous year and so did the numbers. The challenge for Lancashire now is to ensure that these young leaders use the skills they have acquired during this conference and apply them when volunteering within their community. Not only that, but also to guarantee each interested individual is linked to a high quality placement with excellent supervision and support.
Adrian Leather, Chief Executive of Lancashire Sport Partnership summarised how important the conference is for Lancashire's young volunteers:
“ The Step in Sport Conference has been a showcase for Lancashire’s future skills and talent, inspired by the real life achievements of Maria Costello. It has provided young people across Lancashire with a fantastic opportunity to hone their skills and be challenged to grow their expertise in Sport; hopefully to form part of the workforce that will support the 2012 Olympics. ”