Out For Sport Training Events
Report Back
With funding from London Sport we ran three training events for member clubs
First Workshop
Recruiting Women to your Team
Monday 4th December 18:30 to 21:30 at House of Sport
With Heather Smith from Women in Sport
19 people registered to attend and 11 made it to the event.
Women In Sport did a great presentation which was well received.
Matt Hill presented about the Hockey Women and how they managed to recruit for their teams. We had interesting discussions.
For a Web report on the Women’s event see here
We did a quick survey monkey afterwards to ask for feedback most questions getting 5 out of 5. Below are some quotes from the survey.
“More than useful I would have called it encouraging, as to continue further, and reassuring, as in knowing that one is moving forwards in the right direction”
“Hugely useful. I left with lots of ideas and wouldn’t have done so if it wasn’t for the informative presentation.”
“The session was informative and insightful, and it was great to hear experiences from other clubs and discuss openly as a group potential issues.”
Second Workshop
Marketing your Club
Wednesday, 24 January 2018 from 18:30 to 21:30
At London First offices | 4th Floor, Middlesex House | Cleveland St | W1T 4JE London
With Svend Elkjaer Director of Sports Marketing Network
14 people registered and again 11 people attended
The presentation was interesting, if perhaps a bit too long for us. The discussion section was very lively with some good ideas about getting your club noticed. Thames Dragons revealed themselves to have some top ideas, ideas such as a special Breast Cancer awareness event – as paddling is very good for recovery from surgery.
Third Workshop
Income Generation for your club
Monday 26th March 2018 from 18:30 to 21:30
At House of Sport.
With Xander Beck a consultant on finance and funding
18 people registered and 14 people attended
Xander’s presentation, which ran through how to decide what money you need and then where to look for funding sources was very interesting and people asked a lot of questions.
Kings Cross Steelers did a presentation on how they had fundraised in the past and this was also well received and lead into a general discussion about raising money.
We plan to carry on and run more training events in the future which might cover topics such as Data protection and Good Governance. Bringing the clubs together to learn about good practice, debate issues and learn from other similar clubs is a excellent way to develop relationships between the clubs.
New queer community sports club – Netball & Rounders
CALLING ALL SPORTY QUEERS – Starting this summer a new queer community sports club will be organising weekly rounders or netball sessions in north London for £1 a session!
The sessions are open to women and non-binary queers and the first session is on Monday (sorry gents….if you’re looking for sporting opportunities for cis gay men, we have a fine selection here).
Full details can be found in the flyer to the right. Queerballers also have a Facebook page.
If you’re interested please use this link to sign up – https://goo.gl/forms/H0rqzcdnKPaMxph32 – or if you have any questions, contact queerballers@gmail.com.
Out For Sport LGBT+ Sports Fair 2018
We recently held another successful LGBT+ Sports Fair in partnership with London South Bank University.
The curse of Friday the 13th might have played mischief with the sound system, but that didn’t dampen the atmosphere as more than 300 people packed out the LSBU Student Centre to meet the 25 clubs. The party kept going until midnight, so hopefully many of you found new sports, new friends, or new connections with other teams.
There were also some great suggestions for what we might do to build some ‘Team LGBT+’ spirit ahead of the Gay Games in Paris, whether we should do a similar event aimed specifically at women, and how to make the most of our Out & Active program for older people.
For those of you who couldn’t join us at the fair, you can find all the LGBT+ sports club websites here.
Out To Swim Summer Boat Party
Out To Swim invites all London LGBT+ sports clubs to join them at their summer boat party! Three decks of extravaganza eleganza, drinks and dancing. Casting off from Tower Pier, the party boat will head up river to the Tate before cruising down to the Cutty Sark and back again, all under the musical stylings of our onboard DJ. Each ticket includes admission, a welcome drink and further 1 x drinks token* that can be exchanged at the bar.
So renew that appetite for Aperol, dust off your best vest and join us for the hottest LGBT+ sports social event of the summer!
Friday 1st June 2018
Location: Tower Pier
Closest Tubes: Bank or Tower Hill
Time: 8:30pm – 1am (cast off 9pm)
Age Restriction: 18+
Please note: The boat party will not be stopping until reaching final destination at 1am. There will not be any opportunity to alight en route.
Tickets here:
https://www.outtoswim.org/ots-summer-boat-party/
Our Unsung Heroine: Vicki Carter, OFS Co-Chair
Our glorious leader, Vicki Carter has been recognised by LEAD as an Unsung Heroine – part of their campaign to mark International Women’s Day 2018 by celebrating those women who go above and beyond to help others without being asked. Click below to read a bit more about why Vicki was nominated.
https://www.leadmagazine.co.uk/iwd2018-unsung-heroines-vicki-carter/
Vicki also recently took part in the 1000 Londoners project during a workshop at London Sport, and talks about how she got into LGBT sport originally…and recalls her first Gay Games in New York in 1994 and what that meant to her. Well worth a watch here.
Well done and thank you to Vicki, and to all the women keeping LGBT sport clubs surging forward.
