Agenda item

·  Olympic Legacy Board Question : Data detailing which sports activities have seen any increase in participation as a result of the Olympics in order to judge what sports are most popular.

·  An overview of volunteering inspired by London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

·  An investigation into the impact the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics on community sport and physical activity for young people aged between 8 and 24 years in the London borough of Southwark

7.1  The officers Paul Stokes, Community Sport Manager and Adrian Whittle, Head of Culture, Libraries, Learning and Leisure presented the three reports, which covered :

• Data detailing which sports activities have seen any increase in participation as a result of the Olympics in order to judge what sports are most popular.

• An overview of volunteering inspired by London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

• An investigation into the impact the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics on community sport and physical activity for young people aged between 8 and 24 years in the London Borough of Southwark

7.2  Officers highlighted that that swimming, cycling and athletics have all seen increasing rates of participation.The Olympics & Paralympics inspired young people to do more and try new sports. Key issues for increasing participation were adult support, adequate provision and the availability of coaching.

7.3  Members reported that Southwark Youth Council have highlighted communication and marketing as an issue. Young people have suggested better use of  social media, and that they see these as key marketing platforms. Officers agreed this needs to be improved and reported that they are consulting young people. They are looking for devolution of social media platforms to relevant officers so that they can start using social media tools more effectively.

7.4  A member commented that Southwark have a great gymnastic team, however the team  say they find it hard to recruit locally.  She commented that this team is very  inspiring so something is very wrong if the team is not known about locally. Officers responded that Southwark do have a "get active” website which has been launched and is getting well used locally; there is a 77 % increase on hits to the platform. Members asked if it was possible to find out what demographic were using the site and officers said this was not possible but the council is working with Sports England who can do more segmentation. The council is using the “get active” marketing programme to do targeted promotion.

7.5  Officers were asked how far away Southwark is from delivering the athletics track and they responded that the council have raised considerable finance and can now do some of the design work.

7.6   A member commented that Southwark Youth Council recently did a  deputation which raised the issue of personal safety when accessing sports provision . The member commented that she is pleased that the council undertook to work with the young people to address their concerns.

7.7  The chair thanked the officers for the quality and thoroughness of the reports.