City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder launches sporting club development plan to address growing participation concerns
Following a survey of sports clubs in Kalgoorlie-Boulder last September, the town unveiled a three-year club development plan at Saturday’s winter sports carnival.
The plan points out that there are more than 140 sports clubs and associations in the city and it is the city’s goal to develop closer ties with them to better connect the community with the clubs, support good governance and Provide more training and development opportunities for club officials.
Deputy Mayor Glenn Wilson told the Kalgoorlie Miner the plan is intended to guide and support sports committees in a number of areas.
“[It’s there]to help with attendance, to help with facilities, with funding, with financial administration, and with marketing and communications,” he said.
“I suppose it’s a chance for clubs to get a little advice because we see committees change quite often.
“Having this type of structure and plan helps those committees know where to get funding, how that funding works, and what benefits the organization or association can get.”
Mr Wilson acknowledged that many local clubs and associations were struggling with low attendance and a shortage of volunteers.
“You can see in this particular document that volunteering has gone down here in the city and that’s probably a trend, also across Australia,” he said.
“COVID probably hasn’t helped a lot of numbers before, but especially in recent years it’s been a bit of a drag for many clubs to get attendance numbers back.
“(That’s why it’s important) to have events like today where people can come out and talk to the federations, talk to the clubs and build that connection so they’re comfortable going into those training sessions and they already have a link and can start to get into and participate in the sport.”
The Action Plan contains several objectives aimed at sport at both junior and senior levels, and particularly at institutional level.
“There are also several parts of the plan that many clubs, teams and organizations may not be aware of and that is the city’s role, through the Department for Local Government, Sports and Culture Industries, to ensure that this flow of communication goes back to the level of government, be it local or state, back to the community groups,” Mr Wilson said.
Mr Wilson said the organisation’s feedback during the consultation period was invaluable in preparing the plan.
“There’s no point in putting together a document if we don’t understand the issues at all, so obviously this first step and consultation helped create a strong document for our community,” he said.
“(Identified areas) were attendee numbers, governance, finance — all those areas of support that you have a lot of people that are very interested in helping, and particularly at the board level, but when that crosses over into some of the skills that.” are required for this, there is not much support for these committee people.
“So this plan helps with the opportunity to be able to contribute within the local government circles and also the state government so that these board members or committee members can be well supported.”
Mr Wilson also spoke of the importance of the plan as sport is such an integral part of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder community.
“Sport is a huge hands-on event in our city, we work hard, we play hard and we enjoy our sport, whether it’s teeball on a Friday night, whether it’s football on a Saturday, or whether you’re going to darts or Go swimming,” he called.
“There are so many different things that our community can participate in and making sure that our community is healthy but also that they can participate and stay active is obviously great for the community’s mental health but also great for keeping our community strong and making connections away from work and away from the neighborhood.”