Currently only 30% of the coaching workforce are women and the percentage of women coaches receiving a qualification each year is 17%.
The #PassOnYourPassion campaign involves a total of 13 CSPs and aims to raise the profile of women coaches, as well as inspiring more female participants into coaching.
GreaterSport – the CSP for Greater Manchester – originally piloted #PassOnYourPassion in 2016. They identified 40 women coaches passionate about coaching and sent each of them an athletics relay baton. The coaches were then asked to pass on their baton to a female participant from their session – the handover symbolising a welcome to the world of coaching. The participant was then encouraged to register their details with GreaterSport for future coaching opportunities. Out of 40 handovers nearly half resulted in successful registrations.
The second edition of #PassOnYourPassion will follow a similar format, but this time the campaign will be going on a 14 week tour, with each CSP taking a turn hosting the campaign for a week.
The tour dates are as follows:
- GreaterSport (Greater Manchester) 1-7 May
- Yorkshire Sport (West Yorkshire) 8-14 May
- Yorkshire Sport (South Yorkshire) 15-21 May
- Active Humber (Humber) 22-28 May
- North Yorkshire Sport (North Yorkshire) 29-4 June
- Tees Valley Sport (Tees Valley) 5-11 June
- County Durham Sport (Durham) 12-18 June
- Tyne and Wear Sport (Tyne and Wear) 19-25 June
- Northumberland Sport (Northumberland) 26-2 June/July
- Active Cumbria (Cumbria) 3-9 July
- Lancashire Sport Partnership (Lancashire) 10-16 July
- Merseyside Sports Partnership (Merseyside) 17-23 July
- Active Cheshire (Cheshire) 24-30 July
The campaign will return to GreaterSport on the 31-6 August, where it will finish.
Why not contact your local CSP, from the list above, to see what events they are putting on for the campaign. If you’re a coach you can contact your CSP to register for a baton or nominate a participant to receive one.
You can also get involved by using the hashtag #PassOnYourPassion when posting on Facebook and Twitter. Don’t forget to tag @reachcoaches.
If you have any women in coaching stories that you would like to share as part of #PassOnYourPassion send them to Reach: reach@sportscoachuk.org – Sports Coach UK’s brand for encouraging more women into coaching.