Over 1,000 staff, board members and partners from all 43 Active Partnerships attended the recent Active Partnership convention titled Building Back Better and Fairer. 13 thought-provoking workshops were held over 2 weeks with 45 sector and non-sector speakers involved including: Tim Hollingsworth CEO of Sport England, Karl George Governance Forum, James Sanderson, NHS England and NHS Improvement, Bill Cullen CEO Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, Katie Stewart Executive Director for Environmental Transport and Infrastructure Surry County Council, Dr Katie Shearn Senior Research Fellow Sheffield Hallam University.
The convention explored a number of key themes connected to ‘building back better and fairer’, and sought to help understand the perspectives of key system partners, and debate the collaborative action that will generate sustainable and transformational change.
The convention was held virtually for the second year in a row due to the pandemic and whilst face to face contact was missed there were many advantages to the format.
Staff commented:
“The virtual convention provided a great opportunity for all the team and board members to join sessions. This created ongoing discussions internally as a result during the two weeks. It's not possible to create the informal interactions that take place during a face-to-face convention, however the reach of a virtual event is far greater.”
“I thought it was really well done and actually spreading it out meant that you could dip in and out and more people could join, that wouldn't normally come to the face to face convention.”
“I missed the social side of things and the more informal opportunities to speak to other AP and SE colleagues from face to face. But this year was more accessible and easier to attend, and also pick and choose. Lower cost and environmentally friendly.”
“This year's format allowed more members of staff, board members and partners to access quality sessions. One of our board members commented that it was great CPD and put her in contact with people and input she would not normally be able to access.”
Attendees were asked how valuable they found they convention and session attended in relation to their work, 78% of people stated it was valuable or extremely valuable to their work.
All the workshop content has been recorded and is held on the e-convention repository and provides a great legacy resource for Active Partnerships and their partners.
In the spirit of collaboration, and to ensure that we practice what we preach an Activity Challenge was set up during the 2 weeks of the E-Convention. The collective goal was to log 3345Km in activity of any type – this is the distance required to travel on a continuous route that connects all Active Partnerships. We smashed the target with 14,380 Km logged with 243 individuals taking part from 31 Active Partnerships & SE.
We would like to thank Sport England for their support for this years convention.
