North Yorkshire Sport marked the move to company limited by guarantee with charitable status at a meeting of North Yorkshire MPs at Westminster last week.
The event was hosted by Andrew Jones MP Member of Parliament for Harrogate & Knaresborough, who is the Parliamentary Sports Champion for North Yorkshire. David Watson, Chief Executive of North Yorkshire Sport outlined the reasons for the change of status and what the organisation had achieved over the last five years to the audience, who were also joined by UK 100m record holder, Montell Douglas.
David Watson, Chief Executive of North Yorkshire Sport said: Our new status will give us two main commercial advantages. Firstly we know that having charitable status will enable us improve the way we engage with local businesses. They will be able to see the benefits of supporting us and in many cases as their CSR policies revolve about charity work we will now fall into that category. In addition we will be able to access additional sources of funding that were not available to us previously. More importantly though, our new structure will allow us to be far more responsive to community needs to ensure that we support grass roots sport and physical activity.
The main aims of North Yorkshire Sport are to increase participation and at the same time demonstrate how sport and activity impacts on the broader education and health issues our young people face today.
David Watson added: The MPs who attended the event were interested to hear about the pathways to the North Yorkshire School Games, to understand how young people in their constituencies can participate and to hear about the Games as a talent pathway. For example, following success at the Games a modern pentathlete was invited to join the GB Modern Pentathlon development pathway programme. We also launched our Workplace Challenge website proving that opportunities to become involved in sport and physical activity is not limited to school aged children.
Andrew Jones MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough said: It was good to hear how North Yorkshire Sport is driving the delivery of sport in our region. I am convinced that North Yorkshire Sport will continue to play a lead role and co-ordinate local partners to achieve great things within our community across sport, health and education and I look forward to seeing them move forward under this new status.
Also launched at the event was the Workplace Challenge and the local MPs were encouraged to sign up the Workplace Challenge dashboard, to set a good example by logging their own personal levels of activity. Following the event David Watson will be visiting more local MPs in their constituencies to outline the future plans for sport and increasing participation in North Yorkshire.
Main photograph: John Crowther (Chair of North Yorkshire Sport), Nathanial Green – young person who has graduated from Get on Track in London (South Merton), Montell Douglas – GB athlete, Andrew Jones MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough
