Inactive people in Bournemouth are set to benefit from thousands of pounds in funding to help them become more involved in physical activity and sport.
Sport England has teamed up with Sporta, whose members, including BH Live, manage 40 per cent of community sports, leisure and culture facilities in the UK, to allocate £430,889 of National Lottery money to 17 local projects. This means cash will reach grassroots leisure trusts, including BH Live, who are operating at the heart of communities, to help them deliver creative projects to engage inactive people in sport.
Launched in April 2013, the three and half year scheme called Make Your Move received £2 million in Lottery funding. 2015 saw the fourth round of funding, which will forge new national partnerships with well-known organisations, including Zumba, the ASA, Great Run Local, local Age UKs and Alzheimer Society branches.
Designed to meet the needs of their own towns or cities, the projects vary in content and size. But the common theme is to support community trusts including BH Live, so they can do things differently and find proactive and resourceful ways to engage groups that haven’t, until now, been interested in sport or exercise.
“While Bournemouth is one of the most active regions in the UK, research is telling us there are still some pockets of inactivity which will have an impact on the long term health of our local community,”
says Mike Lyons, BH Live Director of Leisure Facilities.
“Thanks to National Lottery Funding, and support from England Athletics, Run England, Great Run Local, West Howe Regeneration Partnership, Active Dorset, Bournemouth Borough Council and Public Health Dorset, we will work alongside local health champions to inspire, recruit and motivate currently inactive people into activity such as weekly coach-led walking, jogging, and running sessions, community-based exercise classes and 2km walking events. The legacy of ‘WALK’ (We All Live in Kinson) will be to create a sporting habit for life and will achieve this by introducing new, and building on existing, local activity sessions including, ‘Walk & Click’, ‘Fun Fit and Weigh In’ and Heathlands School running group and more parent and child activities to introduce people to the benefits of regular physical activity from a young age. We will also be offering concessionary rates in our leisure centres, taster fitness classes, swimming and gym sessions, and other sporting activities.”
Sport England’s director of property, Charles Johnston said:
“Leisure trusts play a key part in delivering high quality sports projects in towns and cities across the country. This investment in the 17 projects for sporta’s Make Your Move programme will give people the opportunity to take part in a way that most suits them, and get more people, more active, more often.”
Brian Leonard, Sporta’s CEO said:
“This Round 3 award of £430,889 from Sport England Lottery Funding for the sporta Make Your Move programme is supporting 17 new projects to deliver targeted activities within their local communities aimed at enabling inactive populations to become physically active. These new projects add to the current portfolio of 28 ongoing projects, which have engaged 31 different trusts across England to date. The addition of the new projects will mean that, in total, 47 trusts will have participated in the programme.
“Throughout the next year we will evaluate and share the impacts and learning from Make Your Move. This will include drawing on the experience of all Sporta trusts that have produced projects to encourage inactive people to do more sport and physical activity.”
Make Your Move aims to get people to do at least one 30-minute session of physical activity or sport per week – and keep it up for six months or longer. The hope is that the scheme will engage 40,000 people over the three years.
More information on the programme and its impact to date can be found on the Make Your Move website or tweet @sportaUK #makeyrmove.
Locally, WALK – We all Live in Kinson, will be rolled out in the Autumn and for information on how to get involved contact BH Live on 01202 436889.
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Notes to the editor
About BH Live
BH Live is the South Coast’s leading operator of leisure and event venues – a social enterprise that designs and builds engaging experiences to inspire people and enrich lives. With over 2.5 million visits a year and over £31 million turnover, the organisation is changing lives – placing it at the heart of the UK’s growing social economy.
In 2013/14, BH Live hosted 423 shows, sold over half a million cultural, sporting and entertainment tickets, clocked up 1.8 million leisure centre visits and welcomed 88,000 conference and exhibition delegates which contributed over £45 million to the local economy.
For further press information:
Elizabeth Symmons
PR & Corporate Communications Executive, BH Live
Elizabeth.Symmons@bhlive.co.uk