Engage Your Community !
• More marketing of sport in a non-threatening form and non-traditional manner .
• Given that volunteers remain the primary sport providers in Alberta communities , efforts must be directed at growing the sector ’ s volunteer base in both size and capacity .
• Sport governance and delivery tend to be inflexible and increasingly fragmented . More fluid , collaborative and integrated sport delivery models should be examined and tested .
• “ Canadian Sport for Life ” deserves serious consideration as a model that holds promise to increase and sustain more integrated and seamless grassroots community sports participation and delivery .
• Special attention needs to be paid to our remote , isolated and indigenous communities , to ensure that local sport participation needs are being met .
• Community sport facilities and related infrastructure merit renewal , particularly to remove specific barriers that limit access to sport participation .
Sport spaces and infrastructure While capital spending for sport facilities and infrastructure is eligible for Challenge funding , Makadiff Sports is not set up to replace existing grant programs for capital construction . Challenge judging will lean 6
towards projects that :
• Adapt the size of sport spaces and equipment to invite greater use by children and youth and enhance their experiences ; and / or
• Remove specific access barriers to sport participation .
New thinking ... local innovation All of the above factors , and more , challenge Alberta to consider new community sport investment opportunities and programming options . How can grassroots community sport transform itself in dynamic , innovative ways to ensure that our citizens , and particularly children and youth , become physically literate and skilled in multiple sports ? How can we enable local groups to expand access to active sport participation and engagement , so that people of all ages , cultures and abilities , rural and urban , experience positive and sustained health outcomes while learning life-enhancing values and behaviours ?
The Challenge opens a new opportunity for organizations engaged in grassroots community sport across Alberta to invest in fresh ideas for getting more people more active in sport from early childhood to their most senior years . Let ’ s get more earnest about understanding public needs , public access to , and participation in community