Sport In Profile UK Issue 11 | Page 26

Rounders England FOLLOW US ONLINE TWITTER.COM/SPORT_IP Involvement Taking Part He told us, “I have worked for Rounders England since June 2011 and the main attraction was the role; an opportunity to work with an ambitious sport looking to increase regular participation in a collaborative way, with national sports development agencies and local delivery partners.” Rounders appeared to me as a happy/ easy sport that would appeal to large audiences and had the potential to grow at pace. Working with small budgets and through a variety of different partners has been and still is a challenging task.” Links “My advice to people interested in getting involved in Rounders would be to do it! The feedback that we get from the participants who have returned to Rounders or begun to play for the first time are compelling and moving. The Rounders toolkit was designed to make it easy for anyone to ‘Chuck it, Whack it, Leg it, Smile’. A sharable package that was simple to digest, gave a reminder of rules and notification of how to set up a rounders pitch.” “The wide range of organisations that we are in partnership with (Leisure Trust, County Sports Partnership, University, School Sports Partnership) share a diverse set of motivations, so the outcomes of the partnership need to have multiple dimensions/be mutually beneficial.” 26 Issue 11 2015 “The year has gone really well so far. Rounders participation continues to grow, building on the 15,500 people that play regularly and the 2,750 strong workforce which make opportunities possible. We are acting on insights that we took from a review of youth participation in 2014 to develop an adapted version of the game which will be launched in 2016. We have made additions to our senior management team in the areas of business development and marketing/ communications.” The Future “Rounders has a large participation base within schools, however like many sports the transfer to community settings achieves limited success. Our youth strategy (produced following the insights of 2014) is central to our ambitions for the future; the offer of a Rounders experience, set in the community, which buys into the motivations and values of young people. We want to continue to increase the number of people playing Rounders regularly, particularly within the youth sector and these are exciting times so watch this space!”