MEDIA RELEASE
01/05/13
What: 2013 Sports Without Borders Conference – Innovation and Integrity.
Where: Moonee Valley Function Centre
Date: Friday May 3, 2013
Media opportunity: Senator Kate Lundy (Minister for Sport) available for interview between 10:45am – 11:05am.
The Test, the Open, the Grand Final – these events structure our year as much as the big religious festivals. Questions about Bradman turn up in citizenship exams. In this country sport means something. We’ve spent more on the Olympics than on the National Broadband network. From the top down to the grassroots, we use sports to express our values. Those values have to come from all of us and speak to all of us. They have to change with the times.
Sport and parochialism are inseparable in Australia. More then any other country, sport defines who we are, our values and where we are going.
The 2013 Sports Without Borders/Our Community national grassroots sports conference (May 3, 2013, Moonee Valley Racecourse) will question whether we who facilitate sports: administrators, clubs, volunteers and National Sporting Organisation’s (NSO’s), coaches, SSOs, are being innovative enough to change with the times.
The conference will also address the widely held assumption that grassroots sports clubs are acting in a way that upholds the integrity of sport and its community.
The new Chair of the Australian Sports Commission John Wylie has announced mandatory reforms or proposals on innovation and governance. The ‘Great Debate’ a new item at the conference, will delve into this, debating the topic “Australian sporting groups are letting the team down with ineffective financial and organizational
management and poor engagement practices.” Pitting Steve Horvat (Melbourne Knights FC board) and Rita Panahi (media commentator and SEN host) against two surprise (secret) debaters, and facilitated by Francis Leach (ABC Grandstand).
The conference teams many high profile keynote speakers and MCS, including, Senator Kate Lundy (Minister for Sport, The Hon. Kristina Keneally (CEO of Basketball Australia) and Richard Ings (former head of ASDA), Patrick Skene (Red Elephant) and Josh Vanderloo (AFL) and futurist Steve Tighe, as well as our old friends Paul Kennedy and Brett de Hoedt.
The conference will also offer best practice workshops for participants.
- Get more (and better) volunteers - Josh Vanderloo (Community Participation Manager, AFL).
- Get more members - Brett de Hoedt (Founder and Mayor, Hootville).
- Innovation - Patrick Skene (Director of Sport and Media, Red Elephant Projects)
- The Integrity of Sport - Richard Ings (former head of ASDA).
Key takeaways:
• In the digital age, how do you recruit and retain your volunteers?
• In a spectator-led age, how do you develop systems to engage members?
• What has to change before under-represented groups – women, people with disabilities, people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, gay and lesbian people and Indigenous Australians – see your club as relevant to their lives?
• What partnerships are becoming possible with emerging stakeholders?
• Marketing: not just a good idea, it’s the game.
• Learn from the professionals how to innovate – it’ll push you ahead of the pack.
For more information and for registration: http://www.ourcommunity.com.au/swb2013
Media Enquiries: tom.demetriou@sportswithoutborders.org, 0400002953
