Evolution Of Sports Development And Analysis Of Swim England's Current Sports Development Strategy

Discuss the evolution of sports development and analyse a case study organisation and their current sports development strategy.

Critically discuss the culture and concepts behind the strategy and examine if they fit with the current sport and leisure ideology present within modern Britain.

Analyse the political ideals associated in the creation of the sports development strategy researched in task 1.

Critically examine whether the researched sports development strategy from your organisation is fit for purpose. It is essential in this task to consider a range of issues such as, the Olympic legacy, community demographics, facilities and government funding.

Culture and Concepts Behind Swim England's Strategy

Sports is any activity that involve use of skill and physical exertion in which a team or an individual play against each other for entertainment. Sports Developments the advancement of sporting activities for the benefit of the community. Sport development started in early 1980’s and its involve the likes of, PE staffs, Teachers, coaches, facility directors, community workers, youth workers, professional health workers, policy makers and sport development officers. Effective sport development mostly relies on partners and connect with;-

• Community groups,
• Facility operators,
• National governing bodies
• Local authorities
• Voluntary groups
• Sport development mission statement

1. To create and advance sport and leisure occasions for the native residence and personnel from foundation to superiority.
2. Resolving barriers to participation, promoting peoples, public and community growth.

Sports development refers to the expansion of recreational and leisure activities in the community. Effective and efficient sports advancement depends mainly on networking and partnership with a various sorts of community or voluntary group, NGB’s and local authorities. Sport development enhance change in behaviour and increase community participation in sports while providing pathways and structures from its foundation to attaining excellence.

The development and evolution sports started in 1918. The Forestry Commission initiated the first government body which responsible for sports and recreation. In the year 1937 the Physical Recreation and Training Act was started due to the unrest that occurred in Europe.  The Act was a progression to national fitness.  Local authorities started acquiring land for clubs and facilities, this was supported by the government because of the welfare, social and physical health benefits. Before the Second World War the central body for Physical Recreation was started together with National Playing Field Association. These councils played a persuasive and effective role in promoting leisure and recreational activities (Cabinet Office, 2015).

In the year 1957 the Central Council for Physical and Recreation (CCPR) decided to allocate small independent committee to review the general sport position in the UK and to sanction the appropriate ventures through voluntary and statutory organization of sports.  The economics of recreation and sports which cooperates the first main development of Sports in the UK was a reports from Wolfenden Committee of 1960, this led to the recommendation for Sports Development Council establishment to help in facilitating sporting activities, improve quality of life for people, tackle social exclusion, pursuit excellence and widen access to sport among other functions (Mahtani et al. 2012).

The report also by Wolfenden further reveals the main reasons for decline participation in games among the young people was because of feeble and frequent unavailability of links between local clubs and school sport. Many young people who were committed to participating in sports were led down by the system of leaving school as early as fifteen or fourteen years of age. Wolfenden created a favourable political environment for sports and it had main impacts on sport policy formation, it also contributed to increase in the roles of local authorities in providing for the sport opportunities. Legal authorities started a vast programme facilitating sports in 1970s.

Fit of Swim England's Strategy with Modern Sport and Leisure Ideology

The above may be confirmed in Sporting Future of DCSM. Sporting Future considers the reward people get when they participate in sports and what can be done to make healthy life through transformation in sports. Sporting future redefines how success looks like in games by majoring on five main outcomes: mental Wellbeing, Physical wellbeing, individual development, community and social development and economic development.

• Intensifications of opportunities to participate
• It has promoted behaviour change
• It has challenges traditions of people
• It has help in eliminating barriers that inhibit participation in sports
• It has bring about positive actions that enhance change.

The following are the process of professionalism

• Motivation
• Dedication
• Aspiration
• Professionalism
• Teamwork
• Continuous development
• Training
• Health
• Standing out from the crowd
• Getting an agent

Professionalism sports are sports in which the participants are rewarded for their performance. Professional athleticism came into existence through amalgamation of developments. Increase leisure and the availability of efficient mass media have encourage more audience, this have led to increase in income of sports organizations. As a results of this most people can afford to make sports as their main career, devoting skills, time, experience and physical conditions to high level of modern achievements.  

Swim England is a governing body of swimming in England. The organization help people to learn swimming, safely enjoy water, and also help them to participate in all sports. The vision of the organization for national swimming and it strive to encourage everyone to enjoy the swimming experience in England. The work with various partners to develop appealing programmes that enables all categories of people to be very active in sports, stay healthy and have fun.

Swim England an association that was established in the year 1869, the association have headquarters in Harold Fern, Loughborough. The company was registered on 18^th may 1982. Together with British Swimming the company was relocated to Sport Park, Loughborough University.

The Swim England went through rebranding exercise in the year 2008 including new name and logo. After some negative reaction the company Logo was retained but it stop using ASA.

The new company’s new strategy was applied for swimming with the England. The company then change its name to Swim England and Jane Nickerson appointed to the Executive Officer.

The company now supports over 1000 affiliated clubs through Sub-regional/Regional/ and National structure. The company endeavors to safeguard the interest of the athlete irrespective of age, gender or experience.  Swim England have been organizing competition across England from elite level to age-group. The company also organize talent programme for English this has given swimmers an opportunity to develop and grow potential and skills in swimming.

The company has also partnered with Splash About International and Water babies to create national for toddler and baby safety within the swimming pools. The rules was circulated by British Standard Institute, their, main goal is set the industry to have wide standards to enhance underwater photography and swimming lessons

Analyzing the Political Ideals Associated with Swim England's Sports Development Strategy

British charitable trust that aims in supporting the development and education of young people. The organization was establish in the year 1994 to create and develop brighter future for the young in sporting activities.  This was an idea of Sir John L. Beckwith, he wanted to ensure that the young received quality services in sports.  This person was also keen in ensuring that the young focused their energy in one particular direction. The key person who drove this organization to its developmental years was Sue Campbell who is currently the chairman.  Campbell was also the former chairperson of the UK Sport and also the government non-political advisor.

The trust creates and implements, in partnership with other sports organization, sport programmes and physical education of high quality for the young for ages between 18 months to 18 years, in community and in schools. The key sorts that are included in TOP programmes includes resource cards, high training standards for deliverers and teachers. The goodness of these programmes is that it can be used as well by the disabled young people.

In order to provide the best training, education, research and developments that is aimed at improving the standard of living for the young, the ‘’Beckwith chair of Youth Sport’’ was established in the year 1998 in Loughborough University.  Within a period of one year, the Trust had expanded and it had a reach out of above 3 million young via the provided TOP programmes.

The YST consents most commercial companies to be Business Honours Members. Notable members involve Cyber Coach and Technogym.   

This is a department of the government of the United Kingdom which is responsible for sports and culture in the United Kingdom, it is also responsible for some aspects media thru the UK such as the internet and broadcasting. The department also deal with, leisure, tourism and creative industries which are linked to the department of energy, industrial strategy and business. The departments is responsible for the delivery of the Paralympic Games and the Olympic Games of the year 2012 and the development of the building Digital Economy.

DCMS originated from Department of National Heritage (DNH), the department was initiated in the year 1992 from various other departments. DNH was changed to DCMS in 1997 during the tenure of Tony Blair (Grix, Brannagan & Houlihan, 2015).

DCMS coordinated the bid by London in order to host the Olympic Games in the year 2012, the department was responsible for appointing and overseeing delivery of the agencies towards game programmes and infrastructure, mainly the ODA ‘Olympic Delivery Authority’ and LOCOG.

Comparison with Issues Such As Olympic Legacy, Community Demographics, Facilities, and Government Funding

The reshuffling of the cabinet in the year 2017 which made Tessa Jowell to assume office of the minister of the cabinet but still remain to be the minister of the Olympic games (Grix, 2015).

Following the general election of the year 2010, the ministry that was responsible for coordinating Olympics was returned to the State Secretary. Even though the tittle of Jeremy was still the secretary of DCMS the department was not changed. Jeremy was appointed to be Health Secretary in the year 2012, he was later replaced by Maria Miller who later resigned.  

After the general election of the year 2015, John Whittingdale receive an appointment of becoming a State Secretary and had a role of creating the review process of the BBC charter. DCMS was granted full responsibility for enhancing the policy of digital economy.

Karen Bradley later replaced Whittingdale on the referendum that was done on UK’s membership of EU in the year 2016. In this case also the Civil Society office was relocated from office of the cabinet to the DCMS.

In the year 2018 Mathew Hancorck who was the former minister of Digital State minister was appointed to be State Secretary due to the cabinet reshuffle and on the same year Jeremy Wright became DCMS secretary.

• UK sport

This is a government agency which is responsible for devoting in Paralympic and the Olympic games in the UK, it is a none-departmental and Executive body which is sponsored DCMS department. The body was initiated following ‘’rock bottom’’ show that was held in Summer Olympics in the year 1996.

UK Sport has invested nearly £400m and £24m in summer and Winter Olympics respectively in Paralympic and Olympic sports. The investments come from Athlete Performance Awards that are directly paid to athlete which assist them to cover their sporting cost and enjoy their living. The investments also come from funding from National Governing Bodies of sport. These have assisted the UK sport to invest in sport science, coaches, medicine and sports facilities.

• Local authority

Local authority has got central role in providing the community with recreational facilities and sports. From the leisure centres to the local parks, local council enhances variety of sport and leisure activities to be carried out. They are responsible also for crucial leadership roles such as leading:  sports clubs, school games, National sports governing bodies, private and health sectors. This has help many bodies to unlock sports participation barriers and enhance the delivery systems of the local sports.

Gold challenge was launched in the year 2010, the organization ran Paralympic and Olympic inspired trials in the Olympic Sport Challenge and London 2012Km Challenge. It has partnered with British Olympic Organization, Sport England, Paralympics GB and also worked very closely with LOCOG which is a sport organizing body in London. The main of the Gold Challenge is to form and keep track of events and challenges which motivate people to be very active and improve  

Places is the major lotter-funded initiative for sports that was aimed at helping in capitalising on games inspirations across Sport England. Evolution of Places people play has got three evaluation objectives, that is: to measure the influence of Iconic amenities, inspired amenities and guarding playing grounds.    

When a sports participants play, they play to win. This is the new era of sports development, the heart of this plan is to change sports culture in England. The plan encourage more people to love and participate in sport, to expand the English sports. This has enable England to win medals and tournaments (Lenskold, 2002)

NGB is a governing body of sports that has a sanctioning and regulatory function. This governing bodies comes in many forms, and has got many regulatory factions, for instance it may involve disciplinary actions, rule infractions and determining rule changes that govern them in sports.  

There are several governing bodies of sports across England, the major one is NGB which has the responsibility of controlling specific sport. They help in promoting sports, they are also in charge of taking disciplinary for regulations infraction and determining on change on rules in the sporting activities that it govern (Long, Fletcher & Watson, 2017).  

2012 Olympic legacy in London, is the long-term benefits and effects of planning, arrangement, funding and staging the Olympic and the Paralympic games (Holt & Ruta, 2015).  Variously it is described as;-

• Economic growth- supports and creates new jobs and skills, boosting trade, investment and tourism attraction
• Sporting- growth of more sport facilities which leads to encouragement for participation in school games
• Volunteering and social-lead to a social change and volunteer gets inspired
• Regeneration-lead to creation of new homes, improve transportation and other sites (Evans, 2016).

Sports governance has increasingly become recognized to be crucial in many areas. Professional bodies of sports plays an important role in practising good governance. The bodies are more concern on leadership, conformance, change, strategy and performance among other functions. Good governance in sports have risen in UK over the past decades, the National Governing bodies of sports (NGBS) and sports council have been fortified to make their administrative to be professional as part of modernization of sports. NGBs concentrate by proving participation opportunities in sports to many people. NGB is a non-profit organization that rely on mostly on volunteer boards in order oversee diverse and multiple roles that include organizing and managing competitions, increasing participation, coach development, developing talent, promotion and marketing of sports and many other roles (Holt & Ruta, 2015).

The main purpose of sports development is to increase participation and promote health of the community. In sports development a profound leadership organizational skills and level of interest for the people is essential. The major role of officer in charge of sports development is to organize and plan various spots projects and to lead in campaigns of encouraging people to participate in sports. Most of the sporting clubs and organization works towards making the sports to be accessible to all and their goal is to make people live strong healthier (Sherry, Schulenkorf & Phillips, 2016).

This is the process in which groups or individuals take part in the society. The following are ways where by the sport development is changing the social world at a high level, from gender equality to helping out veterans and refugees.

1. Getting together alienated community- research found that in 2010 sport helped in bringing together hugely culturally divided Sri Lanka three separate communities namely Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslims. Sport creates momenta of closeness
2. Keeps kids and youths out of gangs- installing sport facilities in a ganged area helps the youth and kids to stay away from the bad company of gang life.
3. Giving refuge a space to ease- the IOC invested $2 million to fund sporting facilities at the biggest refuge centre in Greece
4. Introducing kids into peace contest- peace player international is one of the organization that emphases on teaching children about life skills and new perspectives.
5. Teaching public about gender equality- exposure to female athletes is a crucial learning to young generation that, the female are powerful and strong.

Planning is a phase of process management whereby decisions are made on purposes, the strategies, plans and programmes which direct and control sport organization activities. Planning is a continuous and dynamic process which is adapted by sport associations and it influence sports environment (Coalter, 2013)

Planning is the process of directing sport associations basing on the past analysis, evaluation of aims, present situation and future forecasting- deciding on goals and approaches for the realization of the set objectives through strategies, politics, plans and programmes that will ensure that the entire sport organization activities are covered (Lee, 2016).   

Swim England do not provide any swimming facilities, but its main aim is to facilitate and catalyst the swimming by ensuring that the participants has suitable facilities and appropriate programmes.  The company is providing this in order to ensure that the needs of the aquatic clubs and the community is met. The company is having an ambition of creating a society whereby every individual: has an opportunity to learn swimming, is supported to crow their skills and adores the water through their lifespan. To realize this dream the company has come up with their important strategic objectives to enhance the development, the following are the development strategies for the company (Grix, 2015).

The company will achieve this strategy by:

• Providing leadership and insight to the swimming sector in order to improve the swimming quality and experience to all the participants.
• Utilizing their expertise to drive investment in accessibility and quality services for their pools.
• Incorporating all the influential partners from the industry in order to establish how swimming may enhance health and sport agendas and work within the minimum requirements by the government in ensuring physical activity.
• Utilizing their influence to bring the required resources into the industry to benefit all.

The company will achieve this by:

• building the company positioning to be one of the trusted and the leading authority that enhance learning in swimming
• Working together with the company partners to improve, quantity, quantity and consistency in ‘’learn to swim’’ programmes that is being delivered.

Swim England will achieve this by:

• Creating and developing clear opportunities to swimmers of various abilities and conducive backgrounds to enable many people to take part in aquatics and swimming.
• Nurturing networks and swimming clubs and assisting them to advance and diversify membership with company.
• Creating and developing partnership in order to improve health and social outcomes by assisting the people living with health conditions.
• Working together with providers in order to develop a swimming environment that is very inclusive and meet the needs of the swimmers.
• Utilizing the new partners and innovative tools to modernize the swimming experience and enhance satisfaction in swimming.

Iv. Developing a prominent talent system for all the aquatic disciplines

The company will achieve this by:

• Making sure that well-defined and consistency is delivered when training and developing the athlete for all stages from ‘’learn to swim ’’ to an elite performance.
• Ensuring that all the athletes are trained in the right way and in the conducive environment at all times.

The company will achieve this by:

• Partying the achievements of the company workforce and uplifting the profile of all volunteer and career roles in swimming.
• Providing high quality, accessible, and flexible and frequent training sessions to the company workforce and also providing development opportunities that create transferrable skills.
• Increasing diversity of the swimming and the size of the swimming workforce to guarantee reflection of the community.

1. Strengthening the company sustainability for forthcoming generations

The company will achieve this by:

• Developing an inspiring company’s brand which is eloquent to the general public and which the members of the organization, commercial partners, and stakeholders are proud to have an association with company.  
• Ensuring that the governance of the company and order of activities exhibit best practices.
• Optimizing the current resources of the company and beavering assets including the technology to maximize revenue.
• Providing a leading sector that support its members and to expand the offering for wider swimming to the community.  

In the next few year, the company will emphasis on imputing more resources to marketing. Major marketing operations would be developed in order to ensure that they are focused and targeted and also achieving high level of exposure that is needed in order to achieve the company’s participation targets (England, 2016).

The important strategic goal of marketing for 2013-2017 of Swim England are:

• To utilize marketing and communication strategy to boost the major programs to assist major programs within ASA strategy.
• To develop and instrument campaigns to promote new products that is within the major programmes.
• To lead major national campaigns and to work very closely with various clubs to market the company efficiently.  .

In conjunction with Sport England ASA will be seeking to attain the creation and development of sustainable and accessible pools in England. The organization is aiming at giving guidance and advice to pool providers and local authorities in order to achieve a managed and designed pools that will cater for demand across all the development of swimming and ensuring that the pools are:

• Available through the year and will not be restricted through pricing policies or exclusive membership.
• Located in a site that is convenient to users and can be access easily by the community at large.
• Design and build with materials of high standards.
• Cost effective in operation and design.

The concern team for facilities will equipped areas where the targeted venture has been acknowledged in order to grow the number of participants and enhance talents. The company will work very closely with the pool owners in creation and developments of projects.

Conclusion 

The evolution of sport has boosted life in many communities, there are many benefits that come with sporting. For instance it enhance prevention and treatment of many health conditions. The strategies that have been set by sports governing bodies shows the possibility of vast sporting potential and recreational activities that support health to most of the people This is because of improvement in technology and the availability of many clubs with facilities of high quality.

I recommend that further strong research is needed to understand the role that sports plays in health and welfare agenda and the benefits of the community at large. This report has identified the evolution of swimming and several strategies of Swim England that shows that there is potential growth of the industry.

References 

Cabinet Office, U.K., 2015. Sporting future: a new strategy for an active nation.

Coalter, F., 2013. Sport for development: What game are we playing?. Routledge.

England, S., 2016. Towards an active nation. Sport England, pp.1-46.

Grix, J., 2015. Sport politics: An introduction. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Grix, J., 2015. Sport politics: An introduction. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Grix, J., Brannagan, P.M. and Houlihan, B., 2015. Interrogating states’ soft power strategies: a case study of sports mega-events in Brazil and the UK. Global society, 29(3), pp.463-479.

Holt, R. and Ruta, D. eds., 2015. Routledge handbook of sport and legacy: Meeting the challenge of major sports events. Routledge.

Holt, R. and Ruta, D. eds., 2015. Routledge handbook of sport and legacy: Meeting the challenge of major sports events. Routledge.

Lee, J.W., 2016. A game for the global north: the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang and South Korean cultural politics. The international journal of the history of sport, 33(12), pp.1411-1426.

Lenskold, J.D., 2002. Marketing ROI: Playing to win. Marketing Management, 11(3), p.30.

Long, J., Fletcher, T. and Watson, B. eds., 2017. Sport, Leisure and Social Justice. Taylor & Francis.

Mahtani, K.R., Protheroe, J., Slight, S.P., Demarzo, M.M.P., Blakeman, T., Barton, C.A., Brijnath, B. and Roberts, N., 2013. Can the London 2012 Olympics ‘inspire a generation’to do more physical or sporting activities? An overview of systematic reviews. BMJ open, 3(1), p.e002058.

Sherry, E., Schulenkorf, N. and Phillips, P. eds., 2016. Managing sport development: An international approach. Routledge.