Welsh Athletics Communication Strategy. Version 2.2

Transcription

1 Welsh Athletics Communication Strategy Version 2.2

2 1. Executive Summary This first draft of the Welsh Athletics Communication Strategy aims to replace the previous document composed in February The document analyses the current communication flow within Welsh Athletics and the communication channels between the organisation and external entities, and it recommends ways in which the selected target audiences can gain maximum awareness of Welsh Athletics' key messages. 2. Aims To raise the profile of Welsh Athletics in Wales and beyond in order to: - Make audiences aware of the role of Welsh Athletics and its achievements. - Source sponsorship. - Inspire confidence among stakeholders. - Increase grassroots participation and, in turn, help produce tomorrow's champions. - Boost morale among volunteers in order to retain their support. To keep the athletics community exhaustively informed about Welsh Athletics activities, competition and news, creating a sense of belonging and participation. 3. Audiences The following groups have been indicated as target audiences of Welsh Athletics: - Members - clubs, athletes, coaches, officials, schools, parents, affiliated bodies. - Stakeholders: SCW, WAG, UKA, CGCW, Disability Sport Wales (FDSW), local authorities and partners. - Key facilities: Deeside College, Swansea University, NIAC, etc. - Welsh Athletics' staff. - Sponsors, potential sponsors and funding organisations. - Potential participants and spectators. - Other Home Nations (Athletics England, NI Athletics, Scottish Athletics). - Media (broadcast, print, online). 4. Key messages The Communication Strategy of Welsh Athletics is aimed at reinforcing a set of key messages which should be included in all outgoing and internal communications: - Welsh Athletics is a professional, well-organised body building on past success to shape a new future for athletics in Wales; - Welsh Athletics provides opportunities for everyone to get involved - all ages and all abilities;

3 - Welsh Athletics has a wealth of elite talent and regularly punches above its weight in its contribution to British teams and in international competitions; - Athletics is a significant sport in Wales - in terms of participation and success; - Athletics is at the forefront of movement literacy; - volunteers are the lifeblood of Welsh Athletics; - Welsh Athletics organises a quality programme of events throughout the year; - Wales offers first-class athletics venues across the country, providing a premier athletics environment with back-up services including top coaching and sports science to hand; - Welsh Athletics is working with the FDSW to further develop disability athletics; - Welsh Athletics is in close collaboration with UKA to further develop athletics in Wales; - Welsh Athletics has a zero tolerance approach to drugs in sport and is committed to UK Sport's 100% ME programme, which is designed to increase understanding of drugs-free sport. 5. Key Issues - Athletics in Wales, like most sports, is overshadowed by rugby and football; - There are many opportunities to get involved in athletics that need to be presented to the members of the public to make them aware of what is on offer. - Welsh Athletics has a number of high profile athletes who excel on the world stage, and there is the need to maximise exposure to create a new generation of household names. - The changes in the performance structure and the opportunities for talented athletes need to be communicated successfully. - The necessity to recognise and reward volunteers requires Welsh Athletics to look at their own communication channels. - The excellent achievements of Wales top coaches need to be promoted alongside those of their athletes. - Team announcements are a good way of getting column centimetres, but they are subject to significant last minute changes. - Selected events in Road Running, Fell Running and Cross Country need to receive more publicity in order to improve the profile of those disciplines. - Internal communication has been poor, with no co-ordination and no tools used to make employees, volunteers and partners aware of the other departments activities. - The coverage in key written press needs to be increased, with the objective of achieving a regular presence on Western Mail, Athletics Weekly and the major dailies in the South Wales region.

4 6. Opportunities - The appointment of John Dagata as Head of Coaching represents Welsh Athletics' drive to reshape a new future by creating the structures to support coaches throughout the country. - Welsh Athletics has a number of members up and down the country who can help to reinforce the message that there are opportunities to get involved at all ages and ability. - The 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi provide an excellent opportunity for coverage and to turn some of our top athletes into household names. - Events such as the Cardiff Half Marathon can be used to generate awareness of Welsh Athletics, our activities and generate coverage. - The creation of a new website allows Welsh Athletics to revisit its online communication, shaping a new set of tools, services and activities aimed at increasing awareness of the full scope of the Welsh Athletics offer and achievements. - Key personnel within the media world (Andrew Weeks/James Pontin: BBC; Rob Cole: Westgate Agency; etc) have shown interest in increasing the coverage of athletics. - The introduction of new technologies, both third-party (social networking, etc) and hosted on the Welsh Athletics website (newsletter) can facilitate both internal and external communication. 7. Strategy 7.1 Strategy overview - This strategy will combine media relations with direct work with the key target audiences; - high profile athletics stars will be used to endorse the work of Welsh Athletics. This, in turn, ensures that the household names are kept up to date with how Welsh Athletics is going forward; - current successes and achievements will be highlighted to demonstrate the positive direction of Welsh Athletics; - the 2010 season will see the need to prioritise those athletes who are in the running to be part of the Commonwealth Games team to travel to Delhi; - the new website will become an integral and ever-growing part of the organisations' communication, and will include newsletters aimed at keeping all audiences including Welsh Athletics employees - up to date. 7.2 Stakeholders It is vital that this target audience has confidence in Welsh Athletics. While some coverage will filter to these audiences, we cannot rely on media alone.

5 It is suggested that Welsh Athletics explores e-newsletter software. This would allow Welsh Athletics to highlight achievements (not only sporting successes - good practice, appointments, meeting of targets) and send directly to its stakeholders. Through its work with local authorities, opportunities to disseminate local developments could be explored. Sports Development Officers could link Welsh Athletics to opportunities available such as Local Authority websites and resident newspapers. Most stakeholders also have websites and it is worthwhile sending press releases to the relevant person to post on internet and intranet. For example, Sports Council has a staff intranet which is updated daily and is a good way of communicating with all personnel. It is always worth inviting stakeholders (as well as key facilities, affiliated bodies, etc) to key events in the calendar where they get the opportunity to meet athletes and staff to find out first-hand what is happening in Welsh Athletics. 7.3 Key facilities The e-newsletter can come into play here but it is also worth finding out the Communication personnel of each key facility so that Welsh Athletics can tap into communication channels (reports, websites, intranets, in-house newsletters, staff briefings). 7.4 Members An e-newsletter would also be effective here, though it must be recognised that not all members (particularly volunteers/officials) will have access to and, therefore, a hard copy newsletter must be considered. A hard copy would also be useful to send multiple copies to club members and secretaries could be encouraged to make sure newsletters were available on club noticeboards. Meanwhile, clubs can also help Welsh Athletics to communicate the opportunities on offer the length and breadth of Wales. If press release templates and guidelines were drawn up for clubs to send to local media about awards ceremonies, club competitions and so on, Welsh Athletics could potentially increase its column centimetres. Templates could be drawn up to tag onto timely new hooks - eg. Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. Event programme forewords provided by CEO, Chair and President are also a tool to promote key messages. Why not shout about the progress you are making to a captive audience? 7.5 Employees

6 Naturally, employees will be aware of the developments within Welsh Athletics but it is always worth reminding them of good news and of progress in order that they can communicate key messages in their day-to-day dealings. This can be done in team meetings but if you are including statistics, it is worth ing them. 7.6 Sponsors It is not advisable to saturate this group with updates, but it is worth collating achievements, success and media coverage into a sponsorship package. If a substantial sponsor does come on board, they do need to be kept up to date regularly with good news and media cuttings to leverage sponsorship. This audience could also be invited to key events and given VIP treatment to encourage goodwill. Funding organisation can be treated largely the same - it is worth creating a body of record with up-beat statistics and case studies in order that applications for funding can be completed more easily. This body of record can then also be tapped into for annual reports, etc. 7.7 Potential participants and spectators Welsh Athletics offers a comprehensive events programme on an annual basis. This is an ideal opportunity to showcase achievements. Perhaps, event programmes at the larger fixtures could include editorial to convey success and developments. Announcers could also be given a briefing sheet with bullet pointed key messages and this could also be provided, perhaps in a slightly different format, to the media which attend the major dates in the diary. 7.8 Media There is plenty of good news which Welsh Athletics can shout about. It is important for all Welsh Athletics employees to highlight areas of particular interest, forthcoming activities and potential stories so that the Publicity Officer can forward them to the media in advance and in the right format. In order not to saturate media, events need to be identified into categories: - National Media: items of UK gravitas concerning high profile athletes; - Welsh Media: above plus items concerning high profile athletes on the Welsh scene and WTDA; - Local Media: above plus items concerning Welsh team members including agegroup squads; - Welsh Athletics website only: above plus items which are not considered newsworthy but of note to the athletics community.