News

At 2015 AGM held on Tuesday 21st July 2015, following an open nomination process the membership voted to appoint an Elected Director & an Elected Director for each of the Home Countries (England, Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland). The Nominees were were approved by the Board for election at the 2015 AGM.

The Elected Director was nominated for election by the Members, subject in each case to the approval of the Board. The election of Elected Director was decided by votes cast by all the Voting Members at the annual congress. The Elected Directors (Home Country) were nominated for election by the members in respect of that Home Country (England, Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland), subject in each case to the approval of the Board. The election of Elected Directors (home Country) was decided by votes cast by the Voting Members in respect of that Home Country at the annual congress.

We are pleased to announce and welcome:

BRAD WENDES

Elected Director

Brad has been practicing Parkour for over 13 years following a background in gymnastics. Brad is the founder and owner of Team Kinetix and has had an international career in Parkour including live performance, film and television, several Guinness World Records and coaching parkour to participants from 18 months to grandparents. Brad works hard to pass his knowledge on to the next parkour generation growing as practioners, performers and coaches.

MATTHEW McCREARY

Elected Director – Northern Ireland

Matt McCreary, is based in Northern Ireland and training to become a stunt performer. He has been practising Parkour for the past 7 years and have found it that great that it has led me to pursue a profession in it. At present he has been touring around the UK doing performance acts and shows that incorporate Parkour/Freerunning with fun story lines.

SCOTT JACKSON

Elected Director – England

Scott holds a Master of Chiropractic degree alongside being the joint Director of the South of England’s foremost Parkour coaching organisation, Train Hard Parkour. Scott was formerly an international-level trampolinist, but instead decided to pursue Parkour back in 2006. Since then, he has been privileged to be involved in film, television, global events and workshops, and has been coaching since 2009. This is where Scott’s passion truly lies; in helping others to develop and to reach their own potential, both through Parkour and through Chiropractic.

GORDON TSANG

Elected Director – Scotland

Gordon has been practicing Parkour for 10 years and has been based in Edinburgh for the past 5 years. During his time in Edinburgh, he has been instrumental to the growth of the Edinburgh Parkour community. He is a founding member of Access Parkourand has been coaching Parkour within Edinburgh and across Scotland. Gordon has coached at a number of events across Scotland, and was heavily involved in the organisation of the Roots of Movement 6 event. His passion for Parkour and the development of Parkour community in Scotland has led him to become the current chairperson of Roots of Movement.

CRAIG ROBINSON

Elected Director – Wales

Craig, based in Cardiff, started practicing parkour at the beginning of its introduction to the UK after seeing T.V documentary ‘jump London’ in 2003. Craig has become a leading figure in Wales and a huge part of the growth of Parkour in Welsh communities. One of the first generation of Welsh Traceur / Freerunner’s and one of the longest practicing in Wales. With a martial art background, Craig was always creative, playful, adventurous and in touch with his movement. Craig has been involved and performed in film, T.V, news, commercials, events, workshops and has been coaching since 2009. Craig is passionate and enthusiastic about sharing his passion and what he finds most rewarding is inspiring and helping people to fulfil their potential, through coaching parkour/freerunning

Stepehen Mitchell, Independent Chair said:

“2015 has already been an incredibly exciting year in the history of Parkour UK and I am personally delighted that we have found five new Elected Directors of this calibre to help drive the organisation forward. With the ongoing leadership and commitment from our Chief Executive Officer, Eugene Minogue I am confident the community of parkour practitioners and professionals will be inspired to continue to challenge perceptions, engage more participants and deliver even more positive outcomes in the future. At Parkour UK we are committed to develop a National Governing Body of the future, working collaboratively with partners across public health, community safety, sports development, urban design, education and the great outdoors, with the community at heart of every decision we make and a strong Board to govern the discipline appropriately”.

As part of the election of the new Elected Directors & recruitment of the Independent Directors, in addition to the transitional arrangements as part of our Governance changes, Francois Mahop has resigned as an Elected Director as of the 2015 AGM. Francois has served on the board of Parkour UK as an elected director since we were founded in July 2009.

The Board on behalf of the NGB & our community/members wish to formally express and record their significant thanks, gratitude and appreciation to Francois for his contribution as founding member of Parkour UK and his service as a board member. This has enabled us as NGB to be established, develop, progress and break new ground in the sports sector in the UK and beyond. As recognition for the significant contribution by Francois Mahop to Parkour UK, the board offered Francois Mahop the opportunity to take up a role as Governor of Parkour UK, as detailed in our Memorandum & Articles of Association. This was unanimously approved by the membership at our 2015 AGM. Francois joins Chau Belle & Yann Hnautra as Governors of Parkour UK.

FRANCOIS MAHOP

Governor

With an elite level background in athletics and sports and a degree in Sports Physiology, Forrest has been instrumental in creating a powerful relationship between the original French practitioners and the burgeoning UK parkour community. Forrest has lived in London since 2004 and has been a driving force behind the official recognition of the discipline with the UK sporting authorities, co-founding the world-leading organisation Parkour Generations. Forrest is a founding member of Parkour UK.

At 2015 AGM held on Tuesday 21st July 2015, the membership voted to support the boards recommendation to appoint a two new Independent Directors, in addition to a Company Secretary.

The appointments follow a rigorous open and competitive recruitment process for Independent Directors. A recruitment panel consisting of Dan Edwardes – Elected Director, Independent Director & Chair – Stephen Mitchell, Independent Director – Joy Johnston & Chief Executive – Eugene Minogue short-listed a selection of high quality candidates who applied for the roles. This was then followed by a competitive interview process of the candidates, which the recruitment panel then made a recommendation of appointment to the board, which was approved at the July Board Meeting and formally presented to the membership at the 2015 AGM for approval.

We are pleased to announce and welcome:

Catherine Baker

Independent Director

Catherine started her career as a corporate lawyer, training and qualifying at ‘Magic Circle’ firm Linklaters. After many years advising companies across the board on company and commercial law issues, she then moved across into training and education roles, culminating in the position of Tutor and Teaching Fellow at the York University Law School (where she is still a member of the Law School Clinic’s Advisory Board). As Catherine’s interest in people, and their potential, began to become more of a focus, she took on various other training and presenting roles, whilst keeping her hand in as a tennis coach. At the start of 2015 she founded her own business, Sport and Beyond. A behavioural profiling, training and performance company, whose aim is to help people get better at what they do, the business focuses on sport, relaunch, leadership and high performing teams. Catherine’s interest in the sporting world is diverse – as a participant (she played both tennis and hockey to a high level, and still plays county tennis), as a sporting parent, as a coach, and as a volunteer – and she brings huge passion and enthusiasm for sport, and all it can achieve in the widest sense.

Mark Abberley

Independent Director

Mark is a sports business executive and entrepreneur with a particular interest in sports that have a role to play in the modern, urban landscape whilst contributing to personal development and opportunity for individuals and the regeneration and social cohesion of communities. He has experience of the governing body environment having been the CEO of England Boxing since 2011 and was a non Executive director of GB Handball in the build up to London 2012. He has also previously held roles within commercial leisure operations, was the lead consultant for leisure and cultural infrastructure within the Legacy Master Plan Framework for the Olympic Park and has connections with urban and extreme sports that stretch back to 2001 when he was involved in the development and opening of the Xscape extreme sports and retail destination in Milton Keynes. Mark has a particular interest in strategy development, change management and transformational programmes and continues to explore the ways that social finance and investment can play a role in the future of sport, physical activity, place making and urban wellbeing.

Bridget Kight

Company Secretary

Bridget is an ex-international hockey player and a qualified lawyer in New Zealand, England and Wales. She is General Counsel and Company Secretary for a number of companies within an investment portfolio in a private investment office, as well as an independent governor on a primary LGB. In addition to her governance roles, Bridget’s day job includes advising on a broad range of corporate and commercial matters. Bridget’s background in sport derives from both a competitive, elite level, as well as a recreational level, including running, cycling, skiing and tennis.

Steve Mitchell, Independent Chair said:

“2015 has already been an incredibly exciting year in the history of Parkour UK and I am personally delighted that we have found two new Independent Directors and a Company Secretary of this calibre to help drive the organisation forward. With the ongoing leadership and commitment from our Chief Executive Officer, Eugene Minogue I am confident the community of parkour practitioners and professionals will be inspired to continue to challenge perceptions, engage more participants and deliver even more positive outcomes in the future. At Parkour UK we are committed to develop a National Governing Body of the future, working collaboratively with partners across public health, community safety, sports development, urban design, education and the great outdoors, with the community at heart of every decision we make and a strong Board to govern the discipline appropriately”.

As part of the election of the new Elected Directors & recruitment of the Independent Directors, in addition to the transitional arrangements as part of our Governance changes, Joy Johnston has with regret, due to her commitments in the Middle East she formally resigned from the board of Parkour UK as of the 2015 AGM/Congress.

The Board on behalf of the NGB & our community/members wished to formally express and record their thanks, gratitude and appreciation to Joy for her contribution prior to formally joining the board and throughout her term. This has enabled us as NGB to progress, develop and break new ground in the sports sector in the UK. The Board expressed that they would welcome an application from Joy to re-join the board if/when a suitable opportunity arose in the future.

Following approval from our board, the community & our member organisations at our 2015 AGM on the 21st July 2015, Parkour UK has today (24th August 2015) submitted the full application for recognition with the UK Sports Councils.

Parkour UK​ welcomes the Department for Culture, Media & Sport announcement by The Minister for Sport, Tracey Crouch of a consultation on sport in the UK 

Tracey Crouch, said:

“The Government believes that sport is fundamentally a powerful and positive thing. It is now time to turn that belief into something tangible, to turn the dream of a truly active nation into a reality. This consultation document asks some broad questions about how we might achieve this, looking at how we can maximise the value we all know sport can bring, but without giving up what we’ve already got. In the future, this will mean some different decisions being made than would be made today. But they will be better decisions, because they will start to take into account more than simple numbers, they will recognise – and maximise – the extraordinary value of sport”

Commenting on the announcement, Eugene Minogue, Parkour UK CEO, said:

“Following our recent visit to the DCMS to #GiveParkourAGo with Tracey Crouch, the Minister for Sport, we welcome today’s announcement of a consultation on designing a new sport strategy for England. Parkour UK and the Parkour/Freerunning community believe they are extremely well positioned to positively inform the consultation and contribute to the development of new ways of thinking.

We’re particularly pleased that government has chosen to include ‘new sports’ as part of the participation theme; and also that ‘Good Governance’ has been referenced as part of the ‘Coaching, Workforce & Good Governance’ theme. Our current work on being in the final stage of achieving Sports Council recognition as a ‘new sport’, puts the community and us as an NGB at the forefront of this work. As always, we are committed to share our experience with other emerging sports/activities in becoming established and developing the necessary good governance structures. Our recent work to recruit two new Independent Directors, a new Company Secretary and implement significant changes to our Memorandum and Articles demonstrates just that. Parkour UK now have in place a balanced, skill-based board that includes practitioners, two under the age of 25, alongside a modern, independent, term-limited model that is widely acknowledged as best practice, with embedded openness and transparency. 

We believe the Parkour UK community are well positioned to contributing views and opinions across all ten of the identified themes, and fully support the commitment to create an active, healthy and cohesive nation through sport/physical activity. Particular areas of significant contribution are the ‘Participation’ theme – particularly Women & Girls, the ‘Physical Activity’ theme – particularly Mental Health & Older People. As well as the ‘Children & Young People’ theme – basic physical literacy through early years and into primary schools. We have also been positively working with the Department for Education to add Parkour/Freerunning to the list of activities which can be assessed as part of GCSE PE and A–level PE. Discussions are ongoing and we will be submitting evidence to them later in the year”

#GiveParkourAGo #SportingFuture

The public consultation will run for just under nine weeks, until Friday October 2. It marks the start of the government working on a new strategy for sport in this country.