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Development Associates Programme Pt.2 – Jumping into the projects

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Chris Grant

In 2007 I launched Glasgow Parkour Coaching as one of the first Parkour businesses in the UK. It’s fair to say I made it up as I went along for the majority of the time and struggled to find support or other businesses who could relate enough to Parkour.  This led in the early days to multiple barriers around creating the right paperwork, trying to find funding and generally presenting the right trust and credibility to potential clients.

My journey is not an unusual one and there is a variant of this story for most of the early parkour businesses around the world and among our membership at Parkour UK.

For that reason it was no surprise that a business toolkit and a funding directory were towards the top of the list of requests from our members. This timed perfectly with the development associates programme and gave us strong tangible areas of focus for their work.

Business Toolkit

Our DA’s Izzy Perry and Mark Cordeaux were given the task of understanding the needs of Parkour companies and developing the toolkit:

“The project kickstarted with gaining an understanding into Parkour and the audit they have undertaken over the previous year. This report showcased some key themes that the business toolkit should focus on to support the companies. Being able to speak to one of the owners of a company was very insightful to confirm which areas we should focus on to be of the most use to their businesses. From then we brainstormed what the focus of the toolkit would be and individually worked on the different elements that built the tool.  “ Izzy

A crucial aspect to the business toolkit project was to find and curate the good practice that was already out there and our members were more than willing to help. We believe strongly in the collective knowledge from our community and want that to drive our projects. 

“Our project could not have been complete without the input of those who we wanted to benefit most from our support. The parkour community were fantastic whenever we had interactions with them, be that interviews via zoom to understand the needs of their organisation or sharing documents to be used as a start point for our business toolkit work, everyone we engaged with actively contributed to the documents the business toolkit team have produced.” Mark

The brilliant work that Mark and Izzy have put in has created a useful tool for any parkour business looking to improve their current practice. Izzy and Mark’s experience in community sport across organisations like Youth Sport Trust and Basketball England has brought a wealth of knowledge and experience into Parkour UK that’s going to make an impact on our community through the toolkit.

We are excited that this will also provide a stepping stone for any new emerging parkour companies to overcome some of the initial barriers that the ‘older’ companies may have faced in the past.

Funding Directory

Our current members had seen varying success on funding over the years. We know there is a demand to provide a more streamlined, central place to access information on different types of funding, provide tips and advice, and also give advice based on some of the good practice the community has already demonstrated.

We also know that the funding landscape is very large and variable, and this particular project probably posed  the biggest challenge in terms of scale.  Our DAs Sarah and Becky of course rose to that challenge and started by hearing the experiences of our members:

“Following several conversations with members of the parkour community, (notably Gordon Tsang from Parkour Outreach, Daniel Timms from Jump PK and Frazer Meek from Fludity Freerun) I was able to gain an insight into parkour community as these individuals shared their personal experiences and gave me a wider understanding of how parkour clubs are set up and operate, alongside the challenges they have faced. “ Sarah

In the same way parkour business had launched – their company set ups and funding success had happened in varied and organic ways. Becky and Sarah worked tirelessly on curating a detailed, thorough understanding of how different business set ups can affect their ability to access funding. Their previous experience of fundraising and/or supporting clubs in other sectors helped bring that part of the toolkit together.

What really impressed us about Becky and Sarah was their ability to bring together some great resources from a very large funding landscape – and this was achieved largely off their own initiative with minimal support from the team at Parkour UK.

“We were given relative autonomy as associates to deliver the project, which was refreshing. Whilst the time frame in which to complete the project was tight, the shared focus on the outcome goal helped it to feel achievable.”  Becky

Parkour UK has gained a funding directory, funding tips and a detailed advice table on what different company set ups means for accessing funding. We cant wait to get this online and available to access for the community.  

The Parkour UK team and the community are very grateful to Izzy, Mark, Becky and Sarah.

Having access to their varying experience across the sport development world and their ‘fresh eye; on the Parkour community meant that the end product is richer, more objective and more valuable than anything we could have created at Parkour UK internally. That doesn’t even account for the hours, commitment and focus the Development Associates brought to the projects.

Next up in the Blog Series we will talk about the Schools and Further Education toolkits.

 

Development Associates Programme – an introduction

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An introduction to the Development Associates Programme – Dan Newton 

2020 – 21 has been a game changing year for Parkour UK, the £120,000 award from Sport England which has allowed us to invest in executive capacity and insight has been key. With that as a start we had the challenge of trying to increase our capacity and resources, which is what the Development Associates programme has enabled us to do. Put simply, we identified and recruited a group of people, motivated them the offer 5 days’ time over three months and outlined some project areas that we would have fallen short of fulfilling with our staff team of 3. Earlier in the year CIMPSA featured the programme in their membership magazine.  

I have been very fortunate to be given opportunities throughout my career and I see it as an obligation to help others on their way. After we identified the participants for the programme it was very helpful that they were clear about where they wanted to develop. The areas of service improvement, business functions and operations / risk management are ones highlighted by CIMSPA within the professional standards they have outlined for the sports sector.  

Within each of the projects the contributors have produced something which will bring genuine benefits to the parkour community, be it resources or a route forward. The capacity that we had within the team would have made progress in each of the areas, but it would have been less significant. We have allocated 12 days’ time to the project, but the results have emerged from a combined 47 days. 

The are 3 main reasons the programme has been a success. 

Talent and passion – The talent and passion that the associates brought to the project was obvious. The talent has included a comprehensive understanding of university sport, a wide-ranging appreciation of the policies and guidance documents of school sport and an established contact list of schools, but in reality this only scratches the surface. The passion has been the desire to immerse themselves in lifestyle sport and learn as much as they could about the culture of parkour.  

Cognitive diversity – From a diversity point of view the programme has brought into Parkour UK a range of lived experience and perspectives that we didn’t nor would otherwise have accessed. If we had spent 12 days’ time as a team on any of the individual projects, we would have had a narrower consideration, three minds rather than four or five. Across the four projects we have benefitted from seven different brains.  

Progressive mindset – The Parkour community is naturally progressive. Part of the culture is to develop others and support them to be better than they are, it’s nurturing in a way that doesn’t let anyone finish on their own. All the projects have required the associate to engage with the community and the projects have been successful due to the appetite and openness of the companies.  

“What struck me most when interacting with stakeholders of the Parkour community was the selflessness of the organisations. The motives for running their companies were not profit maximisation, but to ultimately ensure they could one day have their own facility so they could provide continuous opportunities for others to enjoy the benefits of Parkour. This is an observation I will take away and relay to others both in my professional and social spheres.” 

Mark Cordeaux – Development Associate 

Our reflection on the programme 

During the next week or so we will share an overview of each project and some reflections from the associates. We are also planning a second batch of projects, for which will recruit a new group of associates. If you (or you know of others) who are passionate about sport and are keen to progress a career in the sector you will be able to put yourself forward. 

Dan Newton

Thoughts on the January Board Meeting – Richard M Marshall

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Richard M Marshall

RichardMarshallI joined the Parkour UK board in 2020 as the Elected Director for Scotland. While I have only been training Parkour for three years, I have held various directorships for over two decades. Yes, I am at the older end of Parkour practitioners. You can follow my exploits on Instagram.

It is very gratifying to see the evolution in Parkour UK even in the short time I have been on the board. These last months have been reenergised and marked by renewed engagement with the community. I knew that our new CEO, Dan Newton, had been touring the country to meet and train with as many practitioners as possible. I knew that Chris and Omar had been clearing down backlogs of communication and putting in place the processes necessary for growth. However, I hadn’t realised quite the scale of activity and delivery of the exec team and the workforce subcommittee.

Parkour is all about us opening up to challenges and moving from our comfort zones, but the work of the development associates has taken this to a new level. Parkour is also about making movement accessible with a minimum of both skills and equipment making it an ideal subject for education. I was, therefore, delighted to hear about one group of associates that have been learning new skills and finding opportunities by working on building toolkits for schools. This has ranged from risk assessments to tools to enable schools to adopt Parkour to keep even the most reluctant kids and those with special needs moving. This is an area of great personal importance as I know that I would have loved Parkour at school instead of being put off all forms of sports for decades.

The next group of associates have been working on something else where I have a personal interest, university groups. This is personal as my daughter Sonia founded the Edinburgh University Parkour Club. The development associates have been discovering all the university clubs in the UK, surveying them to learn of their experiences and building tools to enable the founding of more and more clubs. These range for suggestion lists through to the inevitable risk assessments.

The last two groups of this brilliant cohort of associates are addressing our business sector that has, of course, been singularly badly hit during the pandemic. Two associates have put together a pack that contains an astounding thirty documents on how get started with a Parkour business. I was a tech entrepreneur for many years and fully recognise the value of these guides and templates to help people overcome the obstacles to starting and running a business, just as we overcome physical obstacles while training.

Another two associates have built a funding directory for both those looking to start new businesses and those struggling to survive through lockdown. From my experience in tech startups I know how this kind of support is essential to building a thriving Parkour ecosystem.

Such an ecosystem is key to both the mental and physical health of our countries and if ever there was a need for it, it is now. Sport England has just launched a strategy that is so closely aligned to that of Parkour UK they might have just copied it. Let me be clear: this is a good thing, a fantastic thing, as it focusses on the importance of movement for everyone from small children through to people older even than me. Lifelong activity is how we can all address the combined threats of obesity and loneliness.

richardmarshallReturning to Parkour UK business we were delighted that our Senior Independent Director Tracy Crouch was well enough to join the meeting. We are also starting to recruit a new Independent Chair in rotation from the long-service Stephen Mitchell. Supporting the school educational engagement mentioned above, we are working with Edinburgh-based Access Parkour on schools packages, benefiting from Access’s long-term engagement with schools throughout Scotland. The exec team have also been able to help London Sport drive funding into our community and bringing Parkour to a wider audience.

Last but absolutely not least, we covered the amazing work that Parkour UK has been doing in diversity and inclusion. I am very proud of the range of communities that Omar, Dan and Chris managed have brought together around Parkour, ensuring a welcome for everyone into our sport.

Uniting The Movement – with Purpose

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Uniting the Movement, with Purpose

Last week saw the launch of the much-anticipated new strategy from Sport England. The launch event had advertised a broad range of speakers from UK Active, Parkrun, the World Health Organisation and GM Moving to reflect the intent to join forces on the big issues facing sport. The strategy is called ‘Uniting the movement’ and advocates for ‘movement, sport & physical activity.’ It outlines five big issues and five catalysts for change.

I believe there is a huge opportunity for parkour and freerunning to thrive in England over the next ten years as there is a role for members of the Parkour UK community to play in each of the issues outlined and the chance to adopt / collaborate within each of the catalysts.

There is an importance to all five of the big issues; recover & reinvent, connecting communities, positive experiences for children & young people, connecting with health and wellbeing and active environments…but there are two in particular which are central to opportunity for parkour.

Connecting communities & Active Environments

When introducing the connected communities part of the strategy, Tim Hollingsworth made the following points about sport and physical activity being a huge force for good.

“It can help reduce inequalities, it can bring people closer together, it can help create more resilient, inclusive and connected neighbourhoods, it can also help grow a local economy, it can help create jobs. It can help tackle anti-social behaviour by improving people life chances and opportunities. Put simply the clubs, the groups, the charities, the organisations that provide for community grass roots sport and physical activity. They are part of the fabric of our nation. They are how we connect and how we stay connected with each other.”

The term community has long been associated with parkour. The parkour population has referred to its ‘communities’ since the beginning, notably in the Jump London documentary in 2003 and Jump Britain in 2005. Our communities are passionate, societally and environmentally mindful, do not follow any specific structure or definition and can range in size and scale consisting of small and agile groups of individuals to large multi-faceted commercial organisations. The majority of parkour practitioners train “to be strong to be useful”, regularly volunteering time to enhance their communities, public spaces and grow the discipline.

Our community have already had an impact in many areas of the new strategy. Parkour groups have been working with young people from challenging backgrounds,  fall prevention and Parkinson’s support in older populations and improving physical literacy across the life course and at all levels of sport.George the 88 year old freerunner Parkour is made for collaboration with other groups, and these partnerships have been catalysts for change across sport, community development, education and the arts. It is very exciting for us to see that the core principles and culture of parkour – which have persisted since the beginning of the sport – are in-built in the new strategy’s approach. This means that parkour is positioned to do what it already does very well.

Dame Sarah Storey, the Active Travel Commissioner for Sheffield City Region brought the active environments part to life and made points on altering the language we use about physical activity. “Just moving more anyway” and getting away from having it “as a slot in the diary” is exactly what lifestyle sport and parkour represents.  

There are great examples from around the world of using space in multiple ways to encourage movement and play. In Denmark, The Carlsberg Metatron is a brilliant example of parkour and life existing together in the same place. The project was designed in collaboration with Streetmovement, focused on the idea of facilitating an urban space in an abstract and creative way, the main themes being play and activity.

Newcastle Markey Garden In Newcastle, Australia the Project Market Garden was designed along with Newcastle Parkour  and funded by the city. Parkour helps people to think about the value, design and beauty of any space and we’d love to see more projects like this in England to make our environments more active.

Four of the eight indicators given by Sport England as to ‘what this looks like’ within the connecting communities & active environment represent ways in which parkour can be part of the solution.  Specifically;

Uniting the Movement Moving with Purpose

Active Environment

Helping to create better places to live and the maximising the potential of green spaces, more grey spaces for Parkour though is more pertinent.

Active Environment

Inspiring communities to create opportunities to be active in local spaces.

 

As part our strategy we have set out to ‘communicate, educate and influence’. Through our Parkour parks and facility guidance work we are building on the European standard for Parkour equipment by providing advisory and technical support for stakeholders regarding the protection, enhancement and provision of Parkour spaces.

Connecting Communities

Investing in people and capacity of trusted community organisations

Connecting Communities

Advocating place-based collaboration nationally and locally to address societal issues.

As part our strategy we have set out to ‘grow our community’ and ‘to maximise culture and commercial opportunities’. Specifically, we are focussing on using Parkour to tackle key social issues & outcomes such as mental health, social inclusion and inactivity. Also use and generate online content and case studies from our communities and members to share best practice & sustainable models

If you share our excitement about ‘Uniting the Movement, with Purpose’ and would like to work with Parkour UK to contribute, please contact info@parkour.uk.

#GiveParkourAGo #MoveWithPurpose #UnitingTheMovement

Dorchester Parkour Park Campaign

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Recently there has been various coverage in and out of the
Parkour community about the surprise removal of the Parkour Park in Dorchester.
This removal appears to have happened without consultation of its users and
without an effort to understand the local Parkour communities’ use of the facility. 

Parkour UK’s Development manager Chris Grant met this morning with a group made of up Parkour practitioners, coaches and facilities experts Ten Parkour (Natural Sports)  to discuss the issue and to look at how the group can take action to have the park reinstated or relocated.

There has already made progress with a radio interview, coverage of the issue by Travis Verkaik of The Motus Projects and communication with the local council.
The local community is supported by Train Hard Parkour who run classes in the area.

Parkour UK fully supports the group and welcomes dialogue with local council and any other parties connected to the build and removal of the park. We will continue to stand behind the Dorchester Parkour community on this issue.

If you are interested in supporting the group’s campaign please keep an eye on their website here DT1 Parkour.

If you are in a position to support in anyway please feel free to contact – hello@dt1parkour.com 

Time to Talk Day 2021 – End Mental Health Stigma

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We invite our community and members to participate in Time to Talk Day on February 4th this year.

The day is ran by Time to Change in England & Wales; Change Your Mind in Northern Ireland and See Me in Scotland.

“Time to Talk Day is the day that we get the nation talking about mental health. A small conversation about mental health has the power to make a big difference.

We know that the more conversations we have, the more myths we can bust and barriers we can break down, helping to end the isolation, shame and worthlessness that too many of us with mental health problems are made to feel.

We need your help to start the conversation this Time to Talk Day – together we can end mental health stigma.”

This year with Time to Talk Day happening mostly online and with no face to face events events, the focus is around sending a message to another person and on creating a buzz around the day online.

You can order or print free postcards here by 20th January:

On the day we would encourage you to film or photograph creative ways to get a postcard delivered to someone with a message about mental health using Parkour and movement Skills.

You could film yourself on the way to hand a postcard to a friend, find a fun way to put it in a postbox or come up with your own ideas. Then post your media with the tags #TimeToTalk and #EndMentalHealthStigma and tag the following organisation for your country:

  • England: @timetochange
  • Wales: @TTC Wales
  • Scotland: @SeeMeScotland
  • Northern Ireland: @CYMAntiStigma

As always – please follow COVID rules in place in your area when creating your media.

Please contact us if you have any questions and we look forward to having you involved.

Thanks

The Parkour UK Team

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