The final Better Boards, Stronger Sport (BBSS) governance project meeting was attended by Just Sport Ireland (JSI) and the Irish Sports Council (ISC) in Helsinki in on 8th-10th May 2013.
The BBSS project and ‘toolkit’ is a European Commission funded project, led by the UK Sport and Recreation Alliance, aimed at ‘promoting innovative approaches to strengthen the organisation of sport in Europe’ as part of the EU funding for Preparatory Action 2011 in the Field of Sport. The BBSS ‘toolkit’ which will be produced at the end of the project aims to help national governing bodies of sport improve their governance and will help sports organisations become more effective.
Helsinki was the fifth and final project meeting with representatives from five different EU countries attending including the UK, Ireland, Poland, Estonia and Finland. The eight sporting bodies represented were; the UK Sport and Recreation Alliance, JSI, the ISC, the Polish Ministry of Sport and Tourism, the Estonian Olympic Committee the Finnish Sports Federation, European Women in Sport, European Athlete as Student as well as researchers from Birkbeck, University of London who are collating and editing the text.
The purpose of the meeting was to finalise the ‘tools’ for the ‘to be published’ document and to go through any final amendments to the text. The meeting was chaired by the UKS+RA and the draft document was gone through page by page to pick up any errors and amendments, with each country having a chance to give advice and input. Ireland commended the work done by the group and suggested some design amendments to the document. It was put forward that the possibilities for promoting the published toolkit included through international sporting organisations (such as the IOC), national bodies (such as NGBs) and local bodies (such as LSPs) on their websites and at events. The final document is to be circulated to the partners in the group in July with the final document being ready in August.
The Federation of Irish Sport, JSI and the ISC shall publicise and make available the final document when published and disseminate to NGBs thereafter. Further information on the Better Boards, Stronger Sport project can be found on the UK Sport and Recreation Alliance’s website:http://www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/projects-programmes-and-initiatives/bbss