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Through talks with Sport UK, Sport England, Sport Scotland and Sports Coach UK we have identified the needs of our sport and have introduced the BAFA Grass Roots Initiative (GRI).
GRI has been implemented to increase participation in our sport through our existing teams and hopefully new ones. It is primarily aimed at Flag Football and will be approached from three avenues all of which require exit routes to sustain participation and therefore help clubs, teams and individuals.
Our initial thrust will be that of increasing awareness of our sport to schools through the Local Education Authorities and their newly appointed Partnership Development Managers and School Sport Co-ordinators.
We are currently seeing a number of schools taking on Flag Football in their curriculum or as an extra curricular sport due to the contact made by our RDO’s, some using teachers to deliver but more so by external coaches.
The second avenue is through Dual Use Facilities, these are venues which are schools with excellent sports facilities used by the school during the day and the public on evenings and weekends. These facilities in general are run by local authorities and have Sports attendants who are paid to put on coaching course’s or activities.
We are offering the venues an opportunity to put as many of their staff through the Leaders Award as the require, it is hoped that they will in turn provide Flag Football as another activity in their facility.
In order to ensure the viability of the Dual Use GRI, just as each of the other initiatives we will only set up teams where there is an existing football program for the players to be able to continue participation.
The third avenue is through our Universities, it has been identified that many Universities are willing to pay their students to deliver sport within the community. We hope that we can progress this as this could provide us with a substantial amount of coaches delivering Flag Football into the community and raising awareness of our sport.
As you can see our hands are pretty full but we will endeavour to continue looking for further ways to develop our sport.
Scotland East Bruce Foster bf@britishamericanfootball.com
Scotland West Alan Wilson aw@britishamericanfootball.com
Northeast Tracy Pennock tp@britishamericanfootball.com
Northwest Brendan Thomas bt@britishamericanfootball.com
Yorkshire Michael Gott mg@britishamericanfootball.com
Central Phil Cottier pct@britishamericanfootball.com
South Phillippe Crisp pc@britishamericanfootball.com
The above posts including my own are being paid by both BAFA and the NFL further developing our relationship with the NFL and to this end I would like to thank them for their continued support of our National Governing Body.
There are a number of other initiatives that we are currently pursuing and researching including the inclusion of a new 4 year development plan, news on other items will be posted to each organisation within BAFA and on the new BAFA web site.
Should you require any further information on the BAFA Development department please do not hesitate to contact me on 01642 352402 daytime 01642 641818 evenings cb@britishamericanfootball.com
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