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.”
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