Month: February 2014

February 3, 2014

Minutes of the meeting held on Monday 3rd February 2014 at sportscotland, Caledonia House, South Gyle, Edinburgh  EH12 9DQ at 1600 hours.

Attendees:

Gordon McCormack OBE, Chair
Catherine Goodfellow, Vice Chair
Dave Rhoney, Director
Janice Eaglesham, Director
Gavin Macleod, CEO
Claire Morrison
John Reid OBE
Iain Smith
Caroline Lyon, Company Secretary

Apologies:

Sandra Proudfoot, Director
Anna Tizzard, Director
Gerry Milne, Director
Jo Bell, sportscotland Partnership Manager

Welcome

The Chair welcomed and introduced Claire Morrison, John Reid OBE and Iain Smith, potential co-opted Board members with a view to standing for election to the Board at the September AGM.

Conflicts of Interest

An overview was given by the Chair of conflicts of interests for the benefit of new attendees.

Vice Chair – Commonwealth Games Scotland

Action

Minutes of previous meeting – 16th December 2013

Alex Freeborn should be described as CEO of Recovery Unit.

Matters Arising

The Pathways Manager gave a presentation on the impact of the Regional structure including an introduction to the structure.  The presentation covered the impact of the regional structure on athletes, coaches and clubs, SDS Academy athletes, developing opportunities and the role of the Regional Managers.

Athlete case studies were presented on Martin Perry and Meggan Dawson Farrell.  Also covered were the performance pathway, challenges ahead, future developments, tracking of athletes, community sports hubs and the Board were invited to attend para-sports days held regionally.

A copy of the presentation would be circulated to all Board members.

Reports

Operational Plan

The CEO gave an update to the existing operational plan and outlined the draft plan for the year ahead.

The professional officers’ group would move away from a national format to regional covering the six regions.  This could be re-assessed if there is a demand for national.

The Branch conference will provisionally be held on 16th November, probably at Dewar’s in Perth.

The regional development gala had been held in Prestonpans – events required review as the regional events were attracting a higher calibre of entrant than the national events.

The bowlers would be attending an outdoor training camp in Portugal in March.  On return from the camp selection for the Commonwealth Games would take place.  The selection panel would be held on 26th March comprising Bob Dick – Head Coach, Becky Bisland – Performance Manager and Celia Smith – Assistant Head Coach.  Five bowlers and two directors would be selected.  The appeals policy had been drafted and was circulated.

Five wheelchair curlers had been selected for the Winter Paralympics in Sochi.  Channel 4 would be covering the Games.

The CEO had attended an extraordinary general meeting of the GB Disability Football Association on 30th January which would be moving to a company limited by guarantee.  The Board would be dissolved and a new one established of which Scottish Disability Sport would be an official member and the CEO a Trustee.

A letter had been sent to the IPC supporting the inclusion of race running in the T31/32 category, taking into account equipment, under the existing athletics classification.

Gordon Reid had won the men’s singles and doubles at the Sydney Open beating the world’s no. 1 twice.

Five athletes were attending the Fazaa and Sharjah Athletics competitions in Dubai including Lewis Clow and Jason Maclean for classification.

Danielle Joyce had competed in the deaf international short course in the USA, winning five gold medals, two bronze and setting two world records.

The SDS Athlete Academy had 20 members including seven new members across five sports.  Seven had moved onto world class performance programmes.

Education & Training

Course statistics were available.  The UK Disability Inclusion Training was on target, and targets were being met regarding overall numbers, including sport specific courses which were nearly at the target.  A monitoring and evaluation report had been submitted to Education Scotland and feedback was now awaited.  A report had also been submitted to Sainsburys.

The Boccia UKCC Level 2 pilot had been delivered and endorsement was expected shortly, with the final assessment taking place at the beginning of April.

Recognition

Claire Morrison was congratulated on receiving the sportscotland Performance Coach of the Year award.  Andrinne Craig had won the Grampian regional award.

Governance and Infrastructure

Equality training would take place on 29th April delivered by Lucy Faulkner regarding the next level of the Equality Standard.  This would be attended by all Board and staff.

Branch training on Safeguarding in Sport and PVG would take place on 12th March.  SDS would not be the intermediary body.  Training would be given to the Branches followed up by support from the Opportunities and Equality Manager and the Opportunities and Events Manager as part of the MOR.

Tayside and Fife Post

The Tayside and Fife post remains vacant and the timeline agreed with sportscotland was to re-advertise on 28th March, with interviews taking place on 2nd May and a proposed start time of June 2014.

Help for Heroes

A job description was live on the website.

Communication and Leadership

Written and verbal evidence had been given at the parliamentary enquiry into community sport with the SSA, sportscotland and others.   A debate had taken place in parliament last week but with minimal mention of disability sport.

The CEO had attended a meeting with Mike Whittingham and SIS staff and had been asked to prepare a paper highlighting successes and challenges moving forward.  This had been submitted via Calum Wood and feedback is awaited.

A presentation had been given to the Working Group on Scottish Sport in December.

Queen’s Baton Relay Selections

SDS has had a heavy involvement.  There had been a high level of applicants with a large number of nominations from disability sport.

Forward Planning

The investment date had been brought forward the panel meet on 6th February.  A plan had been pulled together and previously circulated by the CEO.

Admin support for the Branches had been requested at the Branch conference.  There was no source of funding for this at present and would have to come from grants and trusts.

Regional sport non-residential camps would be piloted.

Talent

Ten athletes with four medals was a realistic target for the Commonwealth Games.  27 athletes are in consideration at this time.

A realistic budgeting process was in place but had not considered support in kind or contributions.  For the bowlers attending the IBD World Championships in New Zealand funding of £60K+ would require to be found.

Following the investment decision, costs would need to be considered seriously.

The SDS Athlete Academy is not funded by sportscotland, but originally by the Youth Sport Games, Capability Scotland and the Sportsman’s Charity and funding had ceased last year.

A request had been made to sportscotland to use the Tayside & Fife post underspend to upgrade IT equipment, but this was not agreed.  £15K could be carried over to support the Athlete Academy over the next year.

A decision is awaited from Education Scotland regarding a funding decision for UK Disability Inclusion Training but a quick response is hoped for.

A finance sub committee date would be set in February once the outcome of the investment is known.

Board Members

The potential co-opted Board members introduced themselves.

John Reid OBE: Retired after 40 years in the civil service.  One of his roles had been creating a new £345m pension programme.  He had a responsibility to prepare the Board for skills to deliver new business.  Referee development advisor with the Scottish FA.  Recently resigned as Chair of the West Lothian Child Advisory Committee.  Skills include management experience, corporate governance strategic management and a passion for sport.

Claire Morrison: Previously worked with SDS for 11 years, leaving last May for GB Boccia.  Very keen to stay involved with SDS and continue making a contribution.  Still volunteers in the Scottish Boccia programme and the Boccia Working Group.  The Chair noted that Claire would bring an international dimension to SDS.

Iain Smith: Previously fenced for Scotland and GB in the Commonwealth Games and Europeans.  Worked for Stirling Council followed by 15 years with the Sports Council, Sport 21 and had been seconded to SALSC last year.  Left sportscotland after taking a law degree and now has responsibility for managing a sports law team.

The Chair indicated that an aspiration was to have a more diverse Board membership, and directors and guests were requested to come back with their thoughts within the next week.

Sub Groups

Governance

The group had not met since the last Board but a meeting was planned to discuss revision of the Memorandum and Articles.  Iain Smith had prepared a draft following a meeting with the Chair and Vice Chair last year.  In summary there was nothing actually wrong with the current Memorandum and Articles, in that they are legal, functional and the governance was adequate.  It would be useful to make them easier to read and Iain Smith was happy to revise and work with Board members.

Nominations for Board members could be modernised.  A rigid system was required for electing Directors because of the legal responsibilities involved.  Recommendations would be made for the next Board.  Iain Smith would compile a training pack for directors’ duties.

The approaching fit for purpose audit would be self-assessment.  A rolling review of policies and procedures was required.

Coaching & Education

Good feedback had been received from the Coaching and Education e-learning trial.  Two teachers were currently piloting.

The Performance Coaches’ Conference would be held on 7th December in Stirling.

Communications

The governance group would look into the communications sub group.

HR & Staffing

The Marketing & Commercial Manager was off work for the time being.

Tayside & Fife post: a timeline is in place.

Maternity cover would not be in place for the absence of Lynn Allison.  Lori Ure would be supported by the Pathways Manager.

Partners

The BPA NPC and AGM had taken place with an all party group held last week in Westminster.

The CP-ISRA General Assembly would be held later this year in Barcelona.  The 2015 summer games would be held in Nottingham.

No UKSA Board meeting had been held.  A £300K Lottery project has been secured based around using athletes with a learning disability to run workshops and promote awareness.  Scotland was keen to play a role in the steering group and would probably have athletes taking part.  The Board is currently being re-structured.

Disability Sport Wales are running an information day on 11th March around the In Sport programme.  This is an award scheme for governing bodies linked to investment from sports councils.  The CEO and Education & Development Manager would attend the day in Cardiff and had invited the sportscotland Partnership Manager.

Events

Domestic

The Carpet Bowls National Championships had taken place at the weekend although Highland were unable to attend due to snow.  Approximately 170 people had attended.  Congratulations were extended to Dundee who had four very good juniors.

The regional swimming gala had taken place in Prestonpans.  An event report would follow.

International

Winter Paralympmics 7th-16th March 2014.

GB Rugby team had returned from Canada.

A significant amount of travel would be taking place for Boccia players including Barcelona, Montreal, Prague, Portugal and Hong Kong or Taipei.

AOCB

A new wheelchair group had been established in East Lothian with John de Courcy leading the sessions at Woodlands school.  It was planned to run until June with local sports delivering.

The regional Sportshall athletics was taking place this week with a huge increase to 160 entries.

The CEO updated the Board on the Malaysia project.  Discussions had taken place between Maybank and the National Sports Council and were very positive.  It was hoped that a paper prepared following a telephone conference would go to the Maybank Board in April.

Discussions were ongoing with four companies at varying levels of support.

Barclays had raised £1,000 from fundraising and although not sponsoring SDS are supportive.

Glasgow 2014 had nominated SDS as their in-house charity in the final three month lead in to the Games.

Date of Next Meeting

10th March 2014