Emma Boggis, Chief Executive of the Sport and Recreation Alliance, explains why we as a sector must continue to grow and improve to meet the challenges of the future.
As the guardians of a sport or recreational activity, what you do matters. How your organisation works doesn’t just affect you, your board or your staff – it affects the hundreds, thousands and even millions of people who love your game or pastime.
More people across the UK are participating in our sector than at any time since records began.
Outdoor recreation has become the nation’s favourite activity, we look back at pride with the success of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and we continue to enjoy some of the best regular high quality sport week in week out across the country.
In fact, many of us would argue that sport and recreation have a higher profile than ever before.
And yet – we don’t know what the future holds for our sector. We know we want it to continue and grow, but we also have to be alive to the wider environment – both in terms of policy and funding but also in terms of public interest and engagement.
So when, collectively, we are in this position of strength, and it is a position of strength and opportunity, the test for us is to identify how we can rise further.
Each year at our Leadership Convention the Alliance seeks to help our members grow. Uniquely, we focus on the personal development of the people who lead our members – those at the very top of their organisations.
We aim to equip the senior figures with the tools today to become even better leaders of tomorrow.
This year the Convention, coming up on 12 and 13 of November in Leeds, will seek to build on last year’s sell-out event – where more than 95% of attendees said they would recommend the event to a colleague.
Themed Leading the future, the conference is two days out of the office where Chief Executives and Chairs can stop, think and learn how to make their organisations the best they can be.
This year attendees will hear from futurologists who will share some telling insight on what organisations will need to plan for and how they can adapt to the future.
Yvonne Sell, Director at the Hay Group and author of Leadership 2030: The Six Megatrends You Need to Understand to Lead Your Company into the Future, will look at the future of leadership, the qualities you will need to display and how your decisions will affect real-life situations.
TEDx speaker, Maneesh Juneja, will use his experience working across all sectors – from University College London, to Tesco and GSK – to look at what sport might deliver for the health sector in the future and how data and technology could drive participation.
The full agenda has been announced and we’d love to see as many of you as possible, once again, at our flagship event.
We can’t predict or manage the future, but we can make sure we give ourselves the best chance to prosper by becoming better leaders together, today.
I look forward to seeing you in Leeds.
