“Support Our Sports”
The sports plan from Cr Chris Whiting
Introduction
The more I listen to my local community, the more I see how important junior sports clubs are to our community. In fact, I’m wondering if supporting junior sport is one of the most important things we do as a Council.
Junior sports clubs are where we build what we are now calling “social capital”. This is where we see Mums and Dads meeting other parents, learning to work together, and building a club to support their kids’ dreams of playing for Queensland and Australia.
Families lead such busy lives these days. We work longer and harder than just about any other developed nation.
Yet Mums and Dads will sacrifice their weekends and drive for hours so their child can play a sport for their local team. They will change their shifts so they can mark the lines and staff the canteen.
These parents and volunteers are the people who are building something bigger in our communities. If they put up their hands and say they need help, we need to hear them and act.
And they need help from Council.
The “Support Our Sports” policy
The aim of the “Support Our Sports” policy position is to meet the needs of our community sporting organisations, to deliver the best possible service to them. That includes creating facilities (fields and buildings) that meet their needs, and providing a better level of support (grant applications, club development).
Specific initiatives within “Support Our Sports” include a new approach to sports field maintenance, a review of the region’s built facilities in partnership with community sports, and a new model of operation for regional sports facilities, creating a Sports unit within Council that is easy to deal with and has a high level of customer service.
The following listed initiatives are the current features of the “Support Our Sports” policy position, and the policy will be expanded upon future consultation with sporting associations.
A. Council’s Sports Unit
Currently we have about four staff and a manager in the Sports section, doing everything from liaising with every sports club, helping them with club development and assisting with their grants applications. They have to oversee the development of sporting strategies and planning, provide advice to Council, and liaise with Parks over the fields. They liaise with about four Council units to do all of this.
I propose a unified and centralised sports unit within Council. Staff in this unit would include
· sports development officers who would work with community sports groups,
· dedicated sports grants officers to work in close co-operation with sports groups on grants for Council and for sports groups,
· specialised sports field maintenance staff,
· a small team of sports planners to oversee a joint community-Council analysis of gaps in our sporting facilities and other strategic plans and analyses,
· a small team to finalise the land management plans and leases needed by clubs, and
· crucially, customer service officers within the unit to be the first point of contact for sports clubs.
B. Regional Venues.
For a regional sports centre to best meet the needs to the community sports groups, it should provide the best level of service to the local organisations. This means:
· We need to create the best possible grounds and facilities that can carry the heavy demands of the sports associations of our expanding population, and
· we need to cater for the emerging elite level athletes from our region, as they develop their craft. This includes being able to host high-level competitions and carnivals in our area, so as to develop our athletes.
I propose that the regional sports parks would be sporting and recreational venues managed by broad-based boards.
The venues should be managed by joint Council – business – community boards.
The boards or the commercial operators on site should be enabled to explore and develop commercial opportunities at the park. Commercial income delivered to the boards should create a capacity to fund a higher maintenance of the sporting fields and facilities.
The boards would be responsible for the higher level of grounds and facilities services and maintenance.
C. Sports Field Maintenance
Many of our sports, especially junior sports, are played on grass or turf fields throughout the region. The quality of these fields is varied, as there are different maintenance regimes in the different areas.
To reach the highest practicable level of quality for these fields, I propose Council will take over the maintenance of all turf playing surfaces for community sporting groups.
This will take away one of the most costly and time-consuming activities for local sporting groups, as well as improving the quality of the field. For the clubs in the Pine Rivers area in particular, it would free up their funds and volunteer hours to concentrate on the other needs of the sports and junior players.
Clubs and sports groups would still be responsible for line marking, and Council would negotiate with clubs who want to carry out an even higher level of maintenance. Clubs responsible for maintaining grounds outside of the playing surface would keep that responsibility.
D. Strategic Review of Infrastructure
Council has already started a strategic review identifying the gaps in sporting infrastructure throughout our region. I propose to continue it and build on it by also focusing on the condition of the sports buildings.
In this strategic review of the sporting infrastructure, I propose a more comprehensive community engagement. There would be open consultation with community sports groups and state sporting bodies. Both will be partners in developing easy-to-follow, action-orientated recommendations.
The review of our infrastructure will be driven by the philosophy embodied in the policy – that our primary focus must be on developing grass-roots sports and local sporting facilities, not simply providing large, expensive buildings. That is the best way to develop the “social capital” within our sports clubs.
E. Outdoor Recreation
The growth of outdoor informal recreational activities has been largely unrecognised in our area. Indeed, the number of people participating in activities such as bush walking, jogging, cycling and canoeing outweighs the number of residents involved in organised sporting competitions.
We have some of the best natural areas that are the perfect settings for such informal outdoor activities. However, we need better infrastructure for walking, cycling canoeing and running that is placed through and alongside our landscapes, rivers and foreshores.
Council’s new active role in providing new outdoor recreational infrastructure will be driven by an Outdoor Recreation Strategy, and will also be guided by trail strategies already developed for previous Councils.
Chris Whiting
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