The Leisure Review: the people page

Edition number 17; dateline 1 March 2011

Who’s whom

With jobs as hard to find as a well-balanced Welsh rugby supporter these lucky people will soon be opening their laptops in new surroundings:

Sir Keith Mills has been asked by the DCMS to chair the project board in charge of merging Sport England with UK Sport; Andrew Hind will be chair of the advisory panel set up to advise the government as British Waterways moves from being a public corporation to a charitable body; Dinah Nichols, Roger Clarke and Robin Ritzema will join him; the Federation for World Rowing, FISA, has appointed Guin Batten as interim Chair of their Rowing for All Commission; Business in Sport and Leisure (BISL) has announced that S&P Architects’ chief executive officer Keith Ashton has been named chair of its sports working group.

Who’s looking for whom

And these people are as keen to recruit some help as a Scottish supporter of the same code:

UK Sport are advertising for a head of governance with a salary of £70,000 pa; a graduate trainee is required by Cambridge Arts Theatre but the pay is considerably less; British Waterways are gearing up for the boating season and have jobs from Falkirk to Derby on offer; further afield the Beirut Marathon Association are chasing a race director; Fitness First need a membership sales executive in Bangor, Northern Ireland and any number of freelance personal trainers; the Commonwealth Games is generating work and Glasgow 2014 are looking for a head of sport competition with a salary just north of £50,000; Welsh Hockey have three vacancies for a head of player development, a development support officer and something called a pathway project officer; and as commercial companies seek to make money from shrinkage in the school sport partnership sector a great many coaching “jobs” are on offer throughout England.

Spotlight: Simon Starr

What is your current position?
Director, Sport Nottinghamshire

What do you see as your biggest challenge over the next twelve months?
Apart from getting the computer to respond with an “out of office” reply whenever communications from TLR hit my inbox, supporting partners to maintain and retain sufficient elements of their services, portfolios and infrastructure to enable rebuilding to take place at some future point. Also working with partners to identify the gaps that need filling and working out who is best placed to fill them. It's going to be very difficult at a time when people and organisations are entrenching and consolidating when resources are scarce. In sport, leisure and culture, we've spent our lives working developmentally and in partnership with others and we must not allow the funding cuts and their impact to change that. In fact, it becomes even more important to work in this way.

Apart from the one you currently have, which job within the sport and leisure sector would you most like to do?
So, so many. Lee Westwood's caddie would come very high up the list/ Chef de partie for the BOA has always seemed like a really attractive role, only having to work for a month or so every four years and going free to the greatest show on earth. Kit man for the British Lions, in fact any job on a Lions tour. Years ago, I used to do radio commentating on Heineken League rugby matches in South Wales and I would dearly have loved to have been good enough to commentate on Premiership rugby and international matches on TV, so that would probably be my dream job.

Who or what has inspired you in your career?
To my mind, Sue Campbell has been the most inspiring figure in our industry in the last 15 years. In my early career in Cardiff, Nick Lerry was a big influence. A great manager and a good friend to all of his team. He taught me the value of talking through issues and supporting individuals and teams.

Which single thing would improve the sport and leisure sector?
I would really like to see the complete integration of Olympic and Paralympic sport, of disability sport with able-bodied sport, so that clubs, events and major championships are organised at the same time in the same venue. This would enable the sector to reduce the number of separate NGBs, the number of events and the costs involved. It's starting to happen in several forward-looking sports but it has the potential to make a massive difference, to athletes, to public attitudes, to media coverage and to sport.

What could the sector do without?
Me! I'm getting to be a really grumpy old man as well as becoming a miserable and cynical old sod! A year ago I'd have said Sport England's bureaucracy but they have made big improvements in their processes and they have adopted a far more appropriate way of managing the partners they fund, which has been very encouraging. One thing that does irk me is the lack of respect shown to officials at the highest levels by athletes and players who are role models and the inspiration to future generations. They must be made aware of their responsibilities, the influence that they possess and the damage that they are doing.

Where do you hope to be in ten years time?
On the golf course every day and fit enough to be still playing rugby or cricket in the same team as my son on Saturday afternoons.