The Development Day, which will be held at the John Charles Stadium to coincide with the BUAFL Final Day, heralds the official launch of BAFA’s relationship with runningsports. The day will be the first of a series of workshops which BAFA will organise throughout the year to support the development of our member clubs and will be only one of a large number of workshops covering a wealth of topics, which runningsports provides to clubs from all sports throughout the year.

BAFA Chairman Gary Marshall welcomed the news of the first Development Day by saying “We are delighted to have become members of runningsports. We have been aware for a while that more needs to be done to support the development of our clubs, a point reinforced in the initial findings of the Governance Review.”

By starting with a Development Day rather than a specific workshop, led by an expert tutor, we can highlight the work of runningsports and start to build a profile of the needs of our clubs (both community and university) so that we can work to address these needs as part of our new strategy, ideally with partners like runningsports.

Marshall concluded “I would like to thank runningsports and in particular Margaret Nolan, for their time and interest in our sport. They have been very accommodating as we have worked with them for the past year.”

BAFA advises that all member clubs visit www. runningsports.org and sign up for free to become Network Members, thereby gaining access to many of the resources and receiving notification of the workshops which take place around the country.


About runningsports and the initial Development Day

runningsports was created and is funded by, Sport England. It works to support the development of sports clubs and the volunteers who run them. They offer a wealth of resources to clubs and organise a breadth of workshops which operate throughout the year covering issues as diverse as fundraising and grant applications through to governance and administration training.

The Development Day will help identify the varied challenges which our clubs face and start the process of identifying what resources and support can be made available to help. The Development Day will include two presentations which will focus upon amongst other things, club development best-practice; club workforce development: including volunteer and coach development, and runningsports resources that help meet club objectives.

The first presentation will start at 11:30 and finish at 12:30 with the second starting at 13:00 and will conclude at 14:00 hours in time for the conclusion of the Challenge Trophy Game and the start of the Championship Game. Each presentation will be the same to enable us to accommodate as many people as possible.

The venue will be the John Charles Stadium in Middleton Grove, Leeds on Saturday April 9th.

There is no cost for those who attend but spaces are limited to 120 per presentation. We anticipate people coming from both community clubs and university clubs so please let us know if you wish to attend and which session so we can manage numbers. Entrance to the Finals day is £2 for adults and free for U18.

If you wish to attend please send your details to Caleb Jackson on caleb.jackson@bafa.org.uk Caleb will also be sending out an e-invite to all clubs to respond on. A response to either is fine.

• Times: 11:30 – 12:30 and 13:00 – 14:00 hours
• Date: Saturday April 9th
• Venue: John Charles Stadium, Leeds.
• Link: www.runningsports.org