Today I MC’d a European Sponsorship Association session entitled ‘Beyond 2012’ which looked at the impact that London 2012 would have on the worlds of Olympic Sponsorship, grassroots legacy in the UK and the sponsorship industry a a whole.
The event was hosted at the British Olympic Association offices, and our Reception hosted in and around Olympic torches from Games past.
We were fortunate to have a host of fantastic speakers and panellists from the likes of British Olympic Association, Lloyds TSB, Deloitte, RFU and so on. The most unique session, however, was presented by Dr Martin Yelling and Tom Williams, co-presenters of the excellent running podcast Marathontalk.
The rationale behind Marathontalk (http://www.marathontalk.com/) is not dissimilar to that of parkrun which I mentioned in this blog a few months ago. The podcast creates a sense of community and support for all levels of runner looking to share their passion with others, support that is often lacking in listeners’ daily lives. It has grown dramatically since launch in January, aiming to create the sense that ‘Even if my husband, wife, parents or children don’t understand my running interest, there are thousands out there who will’. In this way, Martin and Tom hope to inspire others to learn and progress in their running. I was left with a sense that theirs is a legacy which will sustain when the Olympic flame has long departed our shores.
This need for ‘connectivity’ relates to a lecture I attended last night given by Baroness Sue Campbell at Bucks New University. Chair of UK Sport and Youth Sports Trust (and thus leading the school and high performance sport agenda in Britain) she talked about the critical need to connect schools with clubs at a local level in driving participation in sport – removing any remaining feeling that sport beyond 16 is only for the elite and encouraging coaches to bring genuine expertise into schools. In this way, they aim to create a bridge from school to club sport in order to create a route towards sport for young adults once the worlds of timetabled PE lessons are long left behind.
London won the right to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games with a promise to inspire young people to ‘choose sport’. 'Legacy', for me, means not just choosing it once, but being supported in choosing it for life. Concepts like Marathontalk and parkrun are the future for supporting grassroots sporting participation in this country. London 2012 will not ensure they continue to do so into adulthood, but together the Youth Sports Trust and Marathontalk just might.
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2 hours ago
Matt, you talk about building communities through social media and I wondered what impact social media is having on Lane4's space and the learning & development sector?
ReplyDeleteHi there. In brief - it is having a big impact, and for two reasons. Firstly, because technology of this sort facilitates a two way conversation process - which we believe is critical to supporting behaviour change. Secondly, because changing demographics in the work-place mean the adoption of this technology among workers is the norm rather than the exception. The impact is not that employers are thinking about using social media as learning and development platform in isolation, but as part of a more blended approach to learning and embedding change. We have only just begun to learn what is possible.....
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