URGENT: Sport England consults on Lottery Funding
Sport England is currently consulting on how to make it easier for community sport projects to access its £45 million share of sport lottery funding. This will be important to grassroots clubs as funding for new facilities, coaching or club development could be easier to secure.
The consultation proposes regular funding rounds to increase the quality and level of participation in community sport, and establish a fund for one-off small grants to improve coaching and facilities. An Innovation Fund, to identify and promote best practice, has also been proposed.
CCPR, the umbrella body for sport and recreation, wants as many views on this as possible to inform its response to the consultation. As such, please forward the link below to all of your relevant contacts.
More information can be found here.
Finchley weighs in on Subs for Clubs
As part of CCPR’s ongoing support of the Subs for Clubs scheme, Finchley Amateur Boxing Club recently welcomed officials from the Treasury’s tax team and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to a junior training session.
The visit showcased how important the CASC scheme is to property-owning clubs like Finchley. It also provided a major boost to CCPR’s ongoing efforts to persuade the Government to allow CASCs to claim Gift Aid on junior membership fees, as it allowed officials to see for themselves how extra tax breaks would benefit community sport.
The Treasury and DCMS officials were very impressed by the attitude and quality of the club and recognised that it is the devotion of volunteers that keeps Finchley boxing.
The club has a long history and an impressive record of producing champions. Run by volunteer coaches Jim and John Oliver, along with chairman Alan Bartlett it has well in excess of 100 junior members from a range of different backgrounds, and runs training sessions almost every night.
CCPR would like to thank Jim, John, Alan and all at Finchley for their hospitality and support in making this visit a great success.
Sports clubs hitting all the right notes
Many sports clubs have televisions in bars and common areas to screen sporting events or training videos.To do so they currently buy both a TV and a Performing Rights Society (PRS) license. A new UK Intellectual Property Office consultation could lead to clubs being forced to buy a Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) license for an additional cost potentially rising as high as £164 a year.
CCPR believes that, as much of the copyright music played is usually in the background of a television programme or an advert and therefore only aired indirectly, any additional cost is both excessive and a case of double payment. Already overburdened with licensing costs and increasing administration, further costs are the last thing that sports clubs need.
CCPR will be responding to the consultation to make the case for sport, advising the IPO against enforcing additional costs on sports clubs and calling for them to go further and grant an exception for sports clubs to the PRS license.
The consultation is available from at: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/press/press-release/press-release-2008/press-release-20080701.html. For further information or to discuss CCPR’s draft response please contact ahanson@ccpr.org.uk.
