In 2016 the Community Sport and Recreation Awards had four different winners:
- Community Sport + Recreation Overall Winner sponsored by Perkins Slade - Broomwood Football Club
- Professional Club Community Programme of the Year Award sponsored by The Professional Footballers' Association (The PFA) – Notts County FC Football in the Community
- Social Impact Award sponsored by Hiscox – Inspiring Healthy Lifestyles
- Youth Volunteering Award sponsored by GBGroup – Modernian Swimming Club
Community Sport + Recreation Overall Winner sponsored by Perkins Slade – Broomwood Football Club
Broomwood Football Club (BFC) is a not-for-profit, community based organisation located in the London Borough of Wandsworth. The football club exists to provide children and young people, regardless of ability or background, the opportunity to play football and has been running for over 20 years. Its all-inclusive ethos focuses on encouraging boys and girls to get active and helps to develop their personal skills and friendships in the local area. The community club is largely run by a group of dedicated volunteers and is successful in really bringing the local area together.
Through a number of different schemes, they have been able to create an accessible environments for local people and have recently reached a record membership level of 830 youth members, including 100 girls, with 14 teams competing in the London County Saturday Youth League.
With the prize money from the Community Sport and Recreation Award they hope to encourage more adult females in the community to play football by waiving membership fees for Broomwood FC Ladies.
Professional Club Community Programme of the Year Award sponsored by The Professional Footballers' Association (The PFA) – Notts County FC Football in the Community
Notts County FC Football in the Community (NCFC FITC) was established in 1989 to use sport for social good. Over the past 26 years, the organisation has expanded to deliver over 34 projects on a weekly basis across Nottingham and now works with approximately 10,000 individuals annually.
NCFC FITC, works with cross-industry organisations such as Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and University of Nottingham to deliver a range of bespoke projects to suit the needs of the local community. The club uses multi-sport and physical activity programmes to give people the opportunity to enjoy both the physical and mental wellbeing benefits of sport.
The community sports charity has identified four areas of focus: education, health, social inclusion and sports participation. Through these four areas the organisation reaches diverse sections of the community, such as: children and young people, people of all ages (male and female) living with mental health problems and many more.
NCFC FITC has employed a part-time Mental Health Specialist to support their wide range of mental health projects to provide advice and guidance. With the money awarded from the Community Sport and Recreation Awards, they hope to make this a permanent position, covering 20 hours a week.
Social Impact Award sponsored by Hiscox – Inspiring Healthy Lifestyles
'Dance in the Community' is a dance project that wants to inspire people to choose a healthy, active and creative lifestyle. Delivered by Inspiring healthy lifestyles, the programme targets children and young people aged 8-16 years-old in the Wigan Borough and 45% of participants come from some of the most deprived communities in the area.
The programme started in 2012 and now works closely with a local housing association and across some community venues to provide young people with an opportunity to take part in free dance sessions. A team of six dance leaders, one part-time coordinator and five volunteers deliver eight free sessions a week promoting the health benefits of being physically active.
Inspiring healthy lifestyles plan to use the money from the award to enable their young people to keep dancing and to take them to a live dance performance in Manchester to provide further inspiration.
Youth Volunteering Award sponsored by GBGroup – Modernian Swimming Club
Modernian Swimming Club is a community swimming club in Bedford that celebrated its 50-year anniversary in 2015. The club focuses on developing each child’s potential in competitive and non-competitive settings and offers subsidised swimming lessons to children from low socio-economic backgrounds.
Volunteers working together are what have helped to make the club successful and there are now approximately 60 volunteers lending their support by teaching, coaching and generally helping run the club. In 2011, the club established Modernian Crash Course, an innovative volunteer programme designed to involve the club’s younger members. The course encourages young people in the club to volunteer and train to become ASA certified swim helps – to date over 60 young volunteers have taken part.
The programme is able to deliver a meaningful impact in the community by offering children the chance to learn to swim through subsidised lessons and also provide opportunities for young people to develop new skills.
Modernian Swimming Club plan to use the Community Sport and Recreation Award money to help fund swimming lessons for children who may otherwise not take up swimming and also to help develop more young people into volunteers.
