The ukactive National Summit is always a well-timed event for us and serves as a great opportunity to refresh and reset after a busy summer, the knowledge and inspiration we take away from this event are always hugely valuable to us and none more so than this time. The discussion around physical activity as a social solution has been at the centre of our core team discussions over the past year as we take a fresh look at our own goals and mission – yes, we do take our own advice 🙂
Without giving too much away, it’s fair to say that the impact of physical activity on our society is truly important to us all as individuals and as a team here at Z. HQ, so the theme for this year’s event was bang on.
For me personally, there were two highlights of the day:
The Purple Pound. I was staggered to find out that the value of the Purple Pound (the combined spending power of disability households in the UK) is a whopping ÂŁ250 billion per year here in the UK and while that’s a huge economic and commercial opportunity for many businesses in our industry, what’s more important to me is the potential for our industry to serve a real social purpose here. It is our duty to improve the promotion and sustainable access to sport and physical activity for those with disabilities which will not only help address confidence and isolation issues for this segment of our community, but it will also help our industry to develop a more mindful approach to business in general. It has to be said that can be a little daunting for some businesses but it was brilliant to hear about the vast array of organisations and funding that’s available to help businesses support disabled people to take part in sport and physical activity, such as Get Yourself Active, Sporting Sense and EFDS.
Dallaglio RugbyWorks  – now then, I start this little write-up with the confession that I have been a massive rugby fan since a young age and have always a bit of a crush on the sporting legend that is Mr Dallaglio so the thought of actually being able to meet him in person was my mission for the day. There is always the danger that meeting your heroes is a bad thing to do but happily I was was delighted to find out that he is a very clever, humble and insightful man. The charity he founded Dallaglio RugbyWorks is hugely impressive and the thought that a sport like Rugby can have such a positive impact on young adult and children facing difficult times (to say the least) is heartwarming. Yes, Lawrence! Queue cheesy grin…
Of course, these are just two small parts of the day and I’d be here for hours writing up my notes (and probably bore the lot of you to death) so I shall stop here but first, to the ukactive team, well done on another fantastic event and thank you for having us.