Select a region
Improved school PE lessons, more inclusion and a new 'Institute of Sport' are among key projects on the agenda for the Guernsey Sports Commission over the next five years.
The organisation, which is partly funded by the States, has released an action plan outlining areas of sport in the island that need to be brought up to date.
The plan focuses on eight different topics and how improvements could be made in those areas. They include:
Pictured: Graham Chester (image from action plan).
The Commission has been working on the plan for the past 18 months and has finally come up with a finished proposal, with work already getting underway on some projects.
One of the major projects would be the Institute of Sport - a new organisation which would offer support for some of the island's best athletes as well as visiting sportspeople.
"Within the Commission in the past we've had what we call a Performance Programme and that has kind of stagnated," said Operations Director, Graham Chester. "It was an opportunity to have a look at what that looks like, how we could refresh that and what the offer could be. The Institute is something that we're quite keen to do.
"What we offer at the moment is almost like a support programme for each of our key athletes around nutrition, physio and screening etc. The Institute would also be a focus for them for training. It's moving the Performance Programme into a physical space.
Pictured: The Commission aims to make improvements for a wide range of local sports.
"It would be fairly elitist from a Guernsey point of view, but if you've got an Institute here you've also got the opportunity of bringing people from the UK over. The knock on effect is that they may be pretty well known sports men and women, so there is that reciprocal arrangement that you could make with them to benefit our local athletes."
Another area for improvement highlighted in the plan is the availability of qualifications for the local sport workforce, who have not always met UK minimum standards in the past.
"We know there are barriers around how sports can access qualifications because we are in an island," explained Performance Director, Jeremy Frith.
"We've developed a partnership with UK Coaching, so we can now offer a lot of those qualifications on-island which is a really important step. We're making qualifications more accessible and cheaper and we can deliver them at two weeks' notice rather than having to book something three or four months' notice."
Pictured: Jon Ravenscroft (image from action plan).
With lots of work yet to do, the Commission is looking for further funding from the States as well as private organisations and individuals.
"We've started with lots of things but we're getting to the stage now that we're going to need some funding to take things forward," added Mr Chester. "We've got that momentum going and we don't want to lose that but we're definitely going to need funding to see it through in that five year timeframe."
ESC's Sport Strategy, which includes the action plan, is due to be debated by deputies next month.
"I'm delighted and really excited," concluded Chairman of the Commission, Jon Ravenscroft. "We've got the right team in place. They're all very enthusiastic and highly qualified, they're compassionate, they work incredibly hard and they want to see it work.
"Sport for everyone!"
Pictured top: The Sports Commission (image from action plan).
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.