Hounslow Helps Women Back Into Exercise
Below we describe how Fusion Lifestyle used promotingactivity.com to support their funding bid on behalf of Hounslow Borough Council.
With the help of funding from the London Development Agency’s Play Sport London programme, a Fusion Lifestyle team working on behalf of Hounslow Borough Council has recently been able to set up a series of programmes aimed at encouraging women within the borough back into exercise. The funding process was managed by PRO-ACTIVE West London.
The team used the market segmentation toolkits on promotingactivity.com to identify the two most prevalent female demographics in the borough – in this case ‘Leannes’ and ‘Chloes’, young women who may not be doing as much exercise as they could or should be. Research has shown that aerobics and netball are preferred sports for both groups so the decision was made to offer a Back to Netball course and some new fitness classes that concentrate on core stability and spinning.
“Promotingactivity.com really helped us in shaping our bid for the Play Sport London funds,” explains Community Sports Development Manager Jo Valks, “the market segmentation toolkits were really helpful as they helped us identify just where our target market lived, which is particularly useful in such a diverse area as Hounslow. We found that there was a high density of Chloes and Leannes living in the centre and east of the borough, so we concentrated on activities that not only suited our target market but that also matched the facilities we had available in those areas. The information also meant that we could carefully target our marketing materials, ensuring that we were more effective in getting our message out to the right people.”
“The results have been fantastic! All the classes were really well attended and spinning has now been fully incorporated into our leisure programme – we are also hoping to offer netball on a regular basis when we can find a suitable venue. I think the fact that we offered free taster sessions was crucial in developing such a high attendance – a lot of the people who joined the classes wouldn’t have attended if they had to pay, but now they are involved in sport and activity again and are keeping on with it, which is the exactly the result we were looking for.”
Do you use promotingactivity.com in an interesting way? Let us know.
Get your clubs to appear on change4life.com
The activity search tool on promotingactivity.com is now powering both www.change4life.com and www.nhs.uk/letsgetmoving. If you’ve got a list of sports clubs and activity groups in your area which you’d like to get onto those two websites then you can do that by simply filling in this form.
If you’ve got a government email address (e.g. .gov.uk, .nhs.uk) then we’ll be able to add you as a user of the search tool straight away, and if you’ve not got a government email address then we’ve got the links to your nearest County Sports Partnership on there who can add you in.
Boxing Into Shape in Hammersmith and Fulham
Below we describe how Hammersmith and Fulham Council used promotingactivity.com to support their funding bid.
A team from Hammersmith and Fulham Council has recently been successful in setting up a women’s boxing programme, after receiving funding managed by PRO-ACTIVE West London and sourced from the London Development Agency’s Play Sport London programme.
The proposal for a share of the funding was put together using the market segmentation toolkits on promotingactivity.com. This helped the team identify the ‘Leanne’ and ‘Paula’ profiles as target groups for their activity programme – market research has shown that both profiles have an interest in aerobic activities, with Leannes also enjoying Body Pump, so a non-contact boxing-based activity was chosen as something that would have significant appeal across both groups.
The toolkits showed that Leanne and Paula profiles were very common in areas of the borough that also showed low levels of physical activity and poor health outcomes, so venues for the classes were placed in those areas and marketing materials were targeted accordingly.
The boxing sessions were led by Hannah Beharry, a coach employed by Active Planet, a Street Games provider in West London. Hannah is a top female boxer who is currently preparing for the world championships and the London 2012 Olympics. Uptake for the sessions was very good and participants that wanted to go on and try full-contact boxing were helped to find a suitable boxing gym, whilst those that showed potential to become a coach were encouraged to access the Recruit Into Coaching programme. The initial course of six sessions were offered at no cost and were a huge success, with the result that the programme is still running, with no cost to participants, and over 100 people are regularly attending.
Phil Amos from Active Planet, who is involved in running the project, has been delighted with the results: “We are very pleased with the success of the boxing programme,” he says “the idea to offer boxing to women was something a little bit new and it really struck a chord. Hannah Beharry has also been fantastic for us as she is incredibly positive and great at getting the girls involved. We are still running the sessions and to have over 100 people still attending is an absolutely fantastic result. It’s possible that we might have to start charging, but we are looking for further funding to let us carry on offering the sessions for free.”
Do you use promotingactivity.com in an interesting way? Let us know.
Learn how Make Sport Fun can help
We’ve put together a series of educational tips on how you can use Make Sport Fun services to increase participation in sport and activity.
To get a series of ideas by email sign up below.
Activity search tool bug
Really sorry about this – but it looks like we’ve got a bug on the Activity Search tool Content Management system. If you click on the latitude/longitude button then nothing happens, or maybe an error message comes up.
We’re working on fixing this right now.
Active People Survey 4: Quarter 2 results
A summary of headline results from the period April 2009-April 2010 (Active People Survey rolling 12 month results), for adult sport participation, at least three sessions a week, 30 minutes, moderate intensity (the ‘one million sport indicator’). Includes data for England by key demographic groups. Published June 2010.
01. Sports participation factsheet: summary of results for England
Case Study: Adults take their physical activity on the road
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – New public health research by a Purdue University professor could help shed light on how the environment can influence physical activity, especially when it comes to where people live.
“We are not just measuring physical activity, but we are linking it to a location using small activity monitors and global positioning system devices,” said Philip J. Troped, an assistant professor of health and kinesiology. “A better understanding of how neighborhood environments influence people’s behaviors could help us to get more people to be physically active and healthy.”
For example, a better understanding of where physical activity occurs and the characteristics of those areas could be used to develop more tailored intervention programs or messages to encourage physical activity at those locations, as well as to shape policy for urban planning and transportation systems.
Getting Men Over 35 Back Into Exercise Through Football
Even though demand for over-35s football is in clear demand, and with the average male having ever-growing time commitments, there is concern over their stamina, fear of injury and the qualities of the facilities in question. Consequently, not-so-young men tend to drop out of 11-a-side football.
FootballREPLAY has been created to make it easier and a lot more fun for all, by being able to offer the same place, same time every week along with smaller pitches.FootballREPLAY was launched on 13th June at 45 different centres across the United Kingdom. More than 10,000 players have been forecasted each week.
promotingactivity.com back online
The promotingactivity.com site is back up and running now. Big apologies for the problems there.
If you’re interested in the technical details (and who isn’t!) then it was caused by an update to settings in the Internet Information Services on the server, this caused problems which have now been resolved.
Promotingactivity.com is down
The promotingactivity.com site is down at the moment – and we’re working hard to figure out why and what we can do to get it up and running again. We’re really sorry for the problems this is causing for everyone, and promise to do our best to get it back up as soon as possible.
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