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6 Month daily Blog

Fri, 3 Dec 2010 15:38:22 +0100

Week 1

(This is my first ever blog)

Done a few interesting things this week along with all the things that come with being a new starter.

Spent half of Monday working on a spreadsheet that would have the name and contact details of every school and head teacher within the Buckinghamshire area, this was a tedious task but one that must be done. In the afternoon I went with Ian to meet John Fuller who is the Hertfordshire 2012 Ambassador. This was a learning point for me as John and Ian chatted away and I just tried to keep up with what they were talking about.

Tuesday was spent finishing of the spreadsheet.

Wednesday was a better day than Tuesday as I learnt a few new skills. The first skill I learnt was how to mail merge, which I have not done since I was in school. I think that this is a skill that I will not forget quickly. The second skill was learning how to use the hi-tech printer and learning how to print labels with it. The rest of the day was spent putting labels on envelopes and putting the letters for the schools into these envelopes.

On Thursday morning I came in and set to work on finishing the envelope task. Ian stopped me and gave me 2 spreadsheets that he wanted little things done to. Both spreadsheets had information about contract winners for MKOB and ODA which needed to have all business that weren’t within bucks removed and locations of each business found via internet. This task was actually a lot easier than it may sound. Once finished locating and removing everything both spreadsheets needed to be combined to make one. Once this was finished I cracked back on with the envelope task... which was nearly finished.

Friday was a very interesting day; I tagged along with Ian to Highcrest School to help a year 8 class with a project. The project was about how to increase tourism to High Wycombe during 2012. I remember doing things like this at school but never thought I would be the one walking around trying to give as much help as possible. It was very interesting walking around the room watching the business mentors help the year 8’s and seeing their ideas evolve. There were a lot of good ideas in that hall but we could on pick 1 winner. The winning idea was by a group called Wycombe Wonderland and their idea was for an inflatable Olympics and Olympic Cook off. The first idea involves trying to do as many of the same events as the Olympics but replacing the equipment used by athletes with giant inflatable’s so that children and adults can join in. The second idea was for everyone to come to the rye and pay to enter a cook off where you can only cook traditional English food and the winner will get a prize relating to High Wycombe in some way, e.g. a hand made chair.

Week 2

On Thursday evening (last week) before I left Ian gave me a task to do on Monday Morning. This task involved going to Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, Dorset and Hertfordshire’s websites for 2012. He wanted me to use these sites as a user and see what ideas we can pick up for our site to help us make it better. This was actually quite a fun task and I just spent all day trying to take loads of good bits from these sites and thinking about how we can integrate them into our site to make ours the super site. Good day.

Tuesday was a different day; I went to the Visitor Information Steering Group which involved a group of people that were supporting all aspects of area development and tourism for the 2012 games. Although every couple of sentences I got lost because of all the acronyms it was actually an interesting day. It meant that I got a feel for what all counties in and around London are doing in run up to the 2012 games. I tried to take notes but they mostly just consisted of ‘what is this?’ or ‘what does this mean’. I finished the day with a simple task of looking at a selection of discs containing pictures and printing of a contact sheet for each so that we could easily tell what pictures were on each disc.

Wednesday started off well with a visit to the Pembroke Road Offices to deliver some 2012 badges to Michaela Smith. Ian also suggested that it might be a good idea to get in contact with a lady named Jacqueline Galvin and ask her if she could go through how to do a few things on the Bucks 2012 website. She was more than happy to so she went through a very basic look at the site and we agreed that I would come back next Tuesday so that she could sit me down and show me the site properly which was VERY nice of her. I also tried my hand at creating some certificates for volunteers that helped with the World Shooting competition & Waterside Theatre Event – Never done this before, went... okay. Rest of the day was spent finishing the photo discs.

Thursday and I am sitting on a empty row again, well apart from Caroline who has been popping in and out of the office most of the day. Ian wasn’t here so I cracked on with all the loose bits of work that I have not had a chance to finish. The first hour or so was spent looking into a Man called Don Finlay and writing up a rough draft for an article that will be published on the site at some point. After this was done I started trying to look at the picture discs again but after spending 45 minutes waiting for one of them to load up I gave up and went for lunch. When I got back I finished my analysis of the 2012 sites and wrote up my 18 point plan for Ian to have a look over and pick out which ones are reasonable goals and which ones are just unobtainable. I guess now that that is done I shall have to give these picture discs another go and see if I can get them to print.

Ahhh half day Friday, a nice way to end the week. I spent the morning writing up an article about the ‘design a break’ competition that GE are running (http://www.designmybreak.co.uk). The ‘design a break’ competition is designed to allow young people to create an innovative way to spend their midday break while trying to promote healthy eating and keeping fit. Once that was finished Ian gave me a list of on going jobs that will lead me to start creating my own work. The first one was to get some quotes for some business cards for myself and Ian which was quick and easy. The second one was to go downstairs and speak with IT about getting the right privileges to be allowed to get onto sites such as twitter and Facebook to allow me to create accounts for Buckssport and set up pages for each. After that was done it was 12.30 and it was the weekend!

Week 3

Monday morning was spent setting up twitter and just spending the morning making it look good and following people to try and get them to follow us. In the afternoon I went and met with a woman called Jackie Copcutt who explained a lot about what they are doing involving the Paralympics and Stoke Mandeville links which was interesting and useful knowledge.

Tuesday morning and it snowed last night. When I finally got my road and car cleared I went to Pembroke road again for the training on how to use portal master which was very good and taught me a lot of things that I didn’t already know. I spent the rest of the day tidying up the site and moving things around so that it was a lot more accessible and easy to navigate.

On Wednesday morning I went to the Young Person conference meeting with Ian to get a grips on what this project was as Ian said I would be helping in this a lot in the future. I sat there taking pages upon page of notes so that I could have a clear understanding of what it was which worked. The rest on Wednesday was spent working on the website and twitter again to try and work out the little kinks that they both had in them.

I had Thursday morning off so I came in at 1. The afternoon was spent finishing what I had started yesterday involving the website mainly. Before I left Ian went over my 18 point plan (for how to make the website better) that I made in my first week and left a comment about what he though of each one. He thought my ideas were good and achievable so he left it with me to try and get as many of these put into action as possible.

Friday was spent working through the 18 point plan i had created which mean’s working on the website and twitter all day. I got at least 13 or 14 points crossed off before I left so I was happy with the days work.

Week 4 (One Month Anniversary)

Monday was spent making minor alterations to the website, although there were things that took me quite a while to work out.

Tuesday was spent mainly doing the same.

As well as Wednesday.

Thursday was a more interesting day. When I got in in the morning Ian asked if I could go to the Wye Valley Young Ambassadors event at Adams Park conference centre. Young Ambassadors are school students aged between 14 - 18 who are taught the values of the Olympics and taught how these values can be used within school via sports. At the conference they were shown games that they could teach to key stage 1 & 2 to help them understand the values and help them to work better with other children.

The day was split into 2 workshops - The first one being given by a former 3 times Olympian (Miriam Luke) who was from Adistar and was trying to promote it and get the Ambassadors to get involved and help. The second one was a work shop called Go Global Games which is run by Dan Strange and it explains and teaches the Ambassadors how to play multicultural games and how to teach and play them with younger children.

Friday was spent writing up a few articles for the website and Ian - The one for the website was about yesterday’s event and the other being the notes I made about last weeks young person meeting. This took up most of the day surprisingly because in-between doing these tasks I was doing a few things on the website and twitter. Not a bad week if you ask me - a lot achieved - site is pretty much finished and everything that I can do on it is pretty much done.

Week 5

Monday was spent making minor alterations to the website, although there were things that took me quite a while to work out.

Tuesday was spent mainly doing the same.

As well as Wednesday.

Thursday was a more interesting day. When I got in in the morning Ian asked if I could go to the Wye Valley Young Ambassadors event at Adams Park conference centre. Young Ambassadors are school students aged between 14 - 18 who are taught the values of the Olympics and taught how these values can be used within school via sports. At the conference they were shown games that they could teach to key stage 1 & 2 to help them understand the values and help them to work better with other children.

The day was split into 2 workshops - The first one being given by a former 3 times Olympian (Miriam Luke) who was from Adistar and was trying to promote it and get the Ambassadors to get involved and help. The second one was a work shop called Go Global Games which is run by Dan Strange and it explains and teaches the Ambassadors how to play multicultural games and how to teach and play them with younger children.

Friday was spent writing up a few articles for the website and Ian - The one for the website was about yesterday’s event and the other being the notes I made about last weeks young person meeting. This took up most of the day surprisingly because in-between doing these tasks I was doing a few things on the website and twitter. Not a bad week if you ask me - a lot achieved - site is pretty much finished and everything that I can do on it is pretty much done.

Week 5

Monday morning was spent tidying up a few loose ends from Friday and cracking on with the 'Bucks CC London 2012 website outline' that was given to me on Friday to do. This was basically a brief outline that had been drafted up by Ian for a separate website that Bucks CC will run not AVDC. I had to take his drafted points and elaborate on them by pulling useful information off the internet etc.

Tuesday morning was dread. Woke up, showered, got dressed then went out to my car to find that it wouldn't start.. Called AA but they took over 2 hours to get there so by the time i got into work it was nearly 1. The task was the same as yesterday, to finish the Bucks CC website outline.

Wednesday morning was spent ring around to cancel a meeting and to try and re-arrange it for some point in January. This proved tougher tham it seemed as most of the people were actually out. So i spent the day trying to get hold of them while doing work on the Bucks CC London 2012 Outline given to me to do. The Bucks CC 2012 outline was basically a word document with a website outline and my task was to expand on the headings.

Thursday morning i went to Stoke mandeville Stadium to attend a Big Oppurtunity meeting which was basically a way for all aspects of Stoke Mandeville stadium and a few other key individuals to meet up and explain whats going on in each department and how things are going etc.

I had Friday off because it was my friends 21st the night before so i did a little work from home on the website but i didn't have much to do. Is that snow i see outside though? Snowy weekend ahead.

New publications from the BHFNC

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:24:42 +0100

We have recently published 3 new documents at: www.bhfactive.org.uk

BHFNC Summary of ‘Change4Life one year on’

This document summarises the Department of Health report ‘Change4Life one year on’, which reflects on the first twelve months of the high profile social marketing campaign,‘Change4Life’ The BHFNC summary of this report examines how professionals involved in marketing physical activity can learn from the first year of the Change4Life campaign. This summary also aims to keep professionals up-to-date with Change4Life developments by outlining the next steps for the campaign in 2010.

To read the BHFNC summary, click here: http://www.bhfactive.org.uk/downloads/BHFNC_summaryof_change4lifeoneyearon.pdf

To read the Department of Health ‘Change4Life one year on’ report, click here: http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh_112632.pdf

BHFNC fact sheet ‘Physical activity and health’

This updated fact sheet provides the latest evidence on how physical activity can help to prevent a range of medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, some cancers, hypertension and osteoporosis. This fact sheet can be used to make the case and secure funding for physical activity intervention or for professionals to increase and update their knowledge.

Download the BHFNC fact sheet ‘Physical activity and health’ here: http://www.bhfactive.org.uk/downloads/PAandHealthfactsheet2010.pdf

BHFNC summary of the latest Health Survey for England (HSE)

This document summarises the key findings from the 2008 Health Survey for

England concerning the physical activity levels of adults and children. Based on these findings, Sonia McGeorge, Co-Director of the BHF National Centre for Physical Activity and Health highlights several action points for health professionals.

Download the BHFNC summary of the latest HSE here: http://www.bhfactive.org.uk/downloads/Summary%20_Health_Survey_England_2008.pdf

We hope you find these new publications helpful and relevant to your work. Keep an eye on www.bhfactive.org.uk for further publications from the BHF National Centre for Physical Activity and Health.

Kind regards

BHFNC team

National Obesity Observatory

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:23:20 +0100

Dear Colleague

For information - the National Obesity Observatory has recently produced

the following resources:

· Child obesity e-atlases

Interactive mapping tool now including NCMP data for

2008/09

· Treating childhood obesity through

lifestyle change interventions. A briefing paper for

commissioners

A brief guide to current best available evidence on

effective treatment interventions for children and young

people who are overweight or obese

· Preventing childhood obesity through

lifestyle change interventions. A briefing paper for

commissioners

A brief guide to current best available evidence on

effective obesity prevention interventions for children

and young people

· Physical Activity in the Active People

Survey

Analysis of Sport England’s Active People Survey data

including walking and cycling for transport

· NCMP data maps

Maps showing prevalence of childhood obesity (2008/09

NCMP) and trend in NCMP participation by PCT in England

All publications may be accessed via the NOO website www.noo.org.uk

We hope you find the publications useful.

STREETGAMES AND SKILLS ACTIVE NATIONAL TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS 2010

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:11:29 +0100

For info: if you can help please forward info to relevant colleagues. if youd like fuerther info or to receieve the rsults please contact Megan as below.

StreetGames is undertaking an important new national survey of skills and training, with the support of Skills Active UK. The survey relates directly to the workforce that is managing and delivering community sport in the most deprived areas of England and Wales. Both StreetGames and Skills Active UK are national partners of Sport England.

If you are a Manager of community sport in disadvantaged areas, please can you take 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire is online, and can be accessed via this link. Managers Questionnaire

http://www.smart-survey.co.uk/v.asp?i=17105ktxky

You will automatically be entered into a prize draw to win £100 of sports equipment for your organisation.

If you are a Coach or Activity Leader of community sport in disadvantaged areas, please can you take 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire is online, and can be accessed via this link.Coaches Questionnaire

http://www.smart-survey.co.uk/v.asp?i=17123nclgl

You will automatically be entered into a prize draw to win £100 of sports equipment for yourself.

My colleague Megan Trueblood-Smith will be contacting you to find out if you need any support or information to help you complete the short questionnaire. In the mean time if you need any support or information, please contact Megan by email using megan@streetgames.org or by telephone on 0207 735 9800.

Please pass on this information to any relevant colleagues who are involved in the provision of community sport in disadvantaged areas.

This survey is very important to the development and delivery of new training for community sport in deprived areas. StreetGames will use the information you send us to set up as much new training as possible. Please find the time to complete the questionnaire, if possible by the end of next week (Friday 15th January).

Many thanks.

latest email from Hugh robertson...

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:18:17 +0100

Dear all,

The final email of the year…..

1. Parliamentary business

a) Pre Budget Report

Sport did not get a direct mention in the Pre Budget Report (PBR) which you can read HERE. However, the PBR did set a Departmental Expenditure Limit for DCMS and other departments. Buried in the detail (page 194) was confirmation that the DCMS resource budget would remain pretty much the same over the next two years and its capital budget would be cut from £0.9bn to £0.6bn

Taking a leaf out of David Cameron's book they also announced a streamlining of quangos. This will include "rationalising up to a third of DCMS ALBs (arms length bodies)”.

b) DCMS Select Committee: London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

The witnesses were Lord Coe, Chairman of LOCOG, Paul Deighton, Chief Executive of LOCOG, John Armitt, Chairman of the ODA and David Higgins, Chief Executive of the ODA. Paul Deighton told the committee that ticket prices could not be set yet because of the ‘changing economy.’

The DCMS Select Committee announced a new inquiry this month into the preparations for securing a lasting legacy from the 2012 Games. If you would like to contribute to the inquiry, you can find out more HERE.

2. Parliamentary questions

Sport:

· The cost of the 2009 UK School Games was approximately £3.3million. A full breakdown of the costs can be read HERE.

· A breakdown of the payments made to national governing bodies for the UK School Games can be read HERE.

· £227,000 was spent on event production at the UK School Games this year. HERE.

· The Youth Sport Trust spent £28,000 on work with 16 Athlete Ambassadors. HERE.

· The £350,000 spent on event management for the UK School Games was split between the Youth Sport Trust (£130,000) and Fast Track (£220,000). HERE.

· DCLG does not have data on local authorities’ plans with regard to discretionary rate relief available to sports clubs. HERE.

Olympics:

· The Government’s Sports Legacy Delivery Board comprises of seventeen different organisations. HERE.

· Four supporting Boards which cover East London, sports, social and economic legacy report to the main Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Board HERE.

· The Olympic Park Legacy Company is responsible for developing and implementing plans for the use and regeneration of the Olympic site after the Games. HERE.

3. Sport

a) Cricket

(i) David Cameron spoke to the Lord’s Taverners Christmas lunch and was extremely well received. He made the following three points which are the basis to our sports policy work going forward:

1. A commitment to improve school sport by reintroducing genuine competition. He reiterated our commitment to return the National Lottery to the original good causes intended by Sir John Major's Government.

2. A recognition of the importance of the voluntary sector in society in general and sport in particular.

3. A re-emphasis of the role of sport in tackling our broken society and the role that organisations such as the Lord’s Taverners play in that objective.

(ii) Hugh was due to attend the Sports Personality of the Year in Sheffield with the ECB but unfortunately got gridlocked on the M25 due to a diesel spill for just over four hours so had to cancel.

b) Football

(i) Hugh met Andy Anson and Simon Johnson to discuss the 2018 World Cup bid. David Cameron is also in the process of signing the guarantees necessary to submit the bid.

(ii) Hugh went to the Football Conference Christmas lunch.

(iii) Hugh met Robert Sullivan to discuss general football issues.

c) Rugby

Hugh met Nick Bunting and John Owen, President of the RFU.

Dutton Inquiry

Timothy Dutton QC published his report on the World Class Payments Bureau and the lessons that need to be learnt from it. Our press release can be read HERE. This is, of course, a historic problem and we are very grateful for the open and transparent way that Sport England in general and Jennie Price in particular have kept us informed of developments.

We strongly support the new Whole Sport plan concept for SNGB funding.

4. Olympics

a) Hugh met John Armitt and Julie King for an update on the Olympic project.

b) Hugh had a meeting with The Mayor’s Office and Baroness Neville Jones on security for London 2012.

c) Hugh and Jeremy met the Permanent Secretary and his team from the GOE to discuss the Olympics.

d) Nicola went on a walking tour round the Aquatics Centre.

Olympic Legacy Taskforce

Our taskforce met for its final session this month. We are in the process of writing the report and drawing up conclusions. We hope to launch our plans early in the New Year.

5. Other events and meetings

· Hugh visited the English Institute of Sport at Bisham Abbey and spent a couple of hours having a briefing from the Chief Executive, Conor O’Shea, touring the facilities and meeting the athletes. We all wish Conor the very best of luck in his new post as Director of Rugby at Harlequins. Hugh went on to have a meeting with Philip Kimberley and England Hockey.

· Hugh spoke to the Bethnal Green and Bow Conservatives about the community benefits of London 2012 by invitation of Claire Palmer, the local candidate.

· Hugh had lunch with a number of journalists from The Guardian.

· Hugh went to the Sportsweek Christmas lunch.

· We met Tessa Saunderson to discuss her sports academy in Newham.

· We met Grassroots marketing agency and Excel to discuss plans for a Spirit of Sport event.

· Hugh met Faye Downey, an expert in sports science and conditioning.

· We met Alison Moore-Gwyn and Helen Griffiths to discuss Fields in Trust’s plans for a 2012 legacy.

· Hugh had a meeting with the Children’s Football Alliance.

Most importantly, we wish you all a very happy Christmas and will look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

Hugh Robertson MP

Shadow Sports and Olympics Minister

Jeremy Hunt MP

Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Active people 3 and wider physical activity / DH data

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:52:12 +0100

message from DH re the above...

this Thursday (Dec 17th) we will be releasing the 2008 Health Survey for England figures on

self-reported and objective measures of physical activity.

In addition Sport England will be releasing Active People Survey 3 which

will focus on Sports participation and progress towards the 1 million

target. Please note that the APS3 release will not include the 2 million

baseline as previously mentioned. We are now aiming to release the 2

million baseline and new domains of physical activity as part of the

rolling 12-month APS release in early March.

We receive pre-release access to both surveys on Wednesday morning and will

work up Q&A and briefing to be circulated (including the reasons and

analysis of the 2m target) first thing on Thursday morning.

DH

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 23:24:54 +0100

Met with DH today. no news yet of 2010-11 funding but they renmain hopeful and confident and hope to hear about their budget position in next few days, and apologise for the delay.

asked us to consider running another get together for CSP PA leads in March which seems sensble. welcome thoughts re this and the programme

Conultation now LIVE re UK physical activity guidelines

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 22:41:54 +0100

Web consultation on the development of new Physical Activity Guidelines in

the UK is now LIVE

Are you interested in commenting on the content of new Physical Activity

Guidelines in the UK which are currently under development? We are pleased

to invite you to log on and participate in a national web consultation.

This is an opportunity for the scientific community and interested

stakeholders and practitioners to comment on the draft recommendations on

what new UK Guidelines on Physical Activity should include.

Please visit www.ukguidelinesconsultation.co.uk to complete the

consultation.

HOW TO COMPLETE THE WEB CONSULTATION?

You have the opportunity to provide comments on the recommendations for

Physical Activity Guidelines for 4 age groups:

Early Years (0 - <5 years)

Children and Young People (5- <19 years)

Adults (19- <65 years)

Older Adults (≥65 years)

The consultation is open until 5pm on Wednesday 23rd December. All comments

will be collated by BHFNC and will feed into the final Technical Report and

final recommendations provided to UK governments. We look forward to your

input in this process. To access the consultation, please visit

www.ukguidelinesconsultation.co.uk.

Please could you forward to your colleagues with apologies for potential

cross postings.

BHFNC on behalf of the

UK Physical Activity Guidelines Coordinating Group

the good, the bad and the ugly at CCLOA conference

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:32:19 +0100

I spoke on behalf of CSPN at the CCLOA conference "sports provision for children and young people" at the emirates stadium today.

The keynote address was from minister of sport Gerry Sutcliffe, who, unusually and pleasingly, spoke well of the role of CSPs with a number of key references, which, whilst they were largely due to the script from civil servants (which i managed to influence!) clearly had some effect as we also got a couple of mentions in the unscripted question and answer session that followed.

My presentation was in the second session, "partnership working with NGBs of sport" following on from kelly simmons from the FA. I think the presentation went ok, though obviously slightly difficult in that our role on this area is the subject of ongoing discussions, but i think i got away with that. however we then stayed on for a 'panel discusion' with Tim Lamb from ccpr, Keith mair from basketball and Iain Varah from london borough of redbridge, who were each invited to say a few words before opening up for questions, it went down hill! I was somewhat prepared for some challenge from ian having seen him in action the recent sport england connect event, but still a little surprised when, given he was sat next to me, he argued that Sport england and CSPs should both be scrapped! He got some support from the floor, mostly unitary LAs, but thankfully we got some support too both from the floor and the other panelists. I tried to respond withut rising to the bait, and I think got away with it, but an interesting experience. a couple of csps were present and might offer further comment.

in the final session, ali oliver and mike diaper did a double act on the five hour offer, and got off relatively lighhtly in the QandA session!

a fun day!