Active Humber has certainly had a busy and impactful 2020.
Our based laid plans in December 2019 were by early February quite clearly going to have to change due to Covid-19.
The military advice from General Eisenhower’s that “the plan is useless, but planning is essential” was our watchword.
With Covid-19 still raging, unsure what Brexit will be like for us all and looking like another long period of uncertainty for us all in 2021 we have used December to reflect on not so much what is our plan for 2021 but planning as best we can for what is to come.
Early in 2021 Sport England will publish the latest Active Lives results which will cover the period up to November 2019. It all points to a significant decrease across the whole population on levels of physical activity.
This is why we have recently published the paper ‘Forward in Motion’ on how we at Active Humber would like to work with our partners in 2021 on six ‘big plays’ to help people and organisations across the Humber to recover from Covid-19 by being physically active and the Humber ‘returning to play’ its role in national life.
We want to help turn the ‘game of life’ back in favour for the people of the Humber. Our ‘game plan’ is simple; that life is better when you are physically active and as a community, and by working together, we will recover more strongly from Covid-19 and have a more equal, resilient, and healthier community in place.
We believe there are six areas where physical activity and sport can help people and the community across the Humber recover from Covid-19. We feel by working with our partners on a ‘big play’ approach in each of the six areas we can speed up the recovery from Covid-19.
Please do read the paper and get in touch with us as to paraphrase General Eisenhower - it is not so much a plan but a means to help us all do the planning for 2021.
We also know that in late January 2021 Sport England will be publishing their new strategy and whilst the language is still being finalised, the strategy will focus on these five major themes.
1. Recover and reinvent recovering from the biggest shock to the status quo in a lifetime and reinventing as a vibrant and sustainable network of organisations providing sport and physical activity opportunities that meet the needs of different people.
2. An active life for a healthy life: strengthening the connection between sport and physical activity and health and wellbeing, to enable more people to live an active life so they can live and age well.
3. Positive experiences for children and young people: unrelenting focus on positive experiences as the foundations for an active life.
4. Strengthening communities: focusing on sport and physical activity’s ability to create greater community development and social integration.
5. Active Environments: creating the places and spaces that make it easier for people to be active.
Active Humber because of all its troubles in 2016/17 did not discuss the Sport England strategy Towards an Active Nation in any detail with partners in the way other Active Partnerships and National Governing Bodies of Sport did. We believe that those discussions have helped others secure extra finance from Sport England as they have been able to put a better more holistic case together than we have in the Humber. Therefore, we are proposing a series of webinars around the new strategy running from February 2021 to our Autumn conference in October 2021 when we anticipate many of the new funding streams will be announced. The aim is not so much having a plan but have done the planning so that the Humber is in the best possible position to benefit from the Sport England strategy over the coming years.
So who knows what will happen in 2021 but we believe ‘Forward in Motion’ outlines a way of working together to recover from Covid-19 and then by working together on the new Sport England strategy, we can as the Humber look forward with some confidence into the future.
