Recreation Professionals / Les professionnels du milieu récréatif

As the 100,000 Canadian Sport for Life Champions campaign continues we are looking at new ways to inspire individuals to take action in their community. At this year's CS4L National Summit we will be launching the CS4L Messenger Program. The Messenger Program involves Champions, such as yourself, presenting to individuals, organizations or groups in your community about Canadian Sport for Life.

At the Summit we will be hosting Messenger Training sessions, which will provide you with all the tools, tips and tricks on how to deliver effective presentations on CS4L and physical literacy.

Happy New Year to you all! I hope you had a safe and happy holiday season. With the New Year rolling in we are less than a month away from the 2012 CS4L National Summit and the first ever World LTAD Symposium!

Remember, today is the last day to register and get the regular rate; don’t miss this opportunity! Today is also the last day to book your accommodation at the Hilton Lac-Leamy under the special Summit rates.

If you have already registered, don’t forget to log in to your registration account and choose your sessions to ensure availability.

We are pleased to announce the program for the 2012 Canadian Sport for Life Summit, February 1 – 2, 2012 at the Hilton Lac-Leamy in Gatineau-Ottawa.

This year we have made a few tweaks to the Summit format. These changes will provide you with even more opportunities to learn about CS4L and share your thoughts, experiences, and best practices.

I was recently invited to provide comments on a discussion paper with proposals for a new Canadian Sport Policy (CSP). As someone immersed in the values and vision of CS4L, I am very concerned about what I have read.

With confusing and often vague language, the discussion paper fails, in my view, to clearly articulate a unifying, encompassing vision for quality sport in Canada.  It also fails to leverage key initiatives occurring presently in Canadian sport, including but not exclusive to CS4L. 

I was just reading Alina Tugend's essay "In a Data-Heavy Society, Being Defined by the Numbers" in the NY Times. It reminded me that one of the responsibilities I've taken on within the CS4L Leadership Team is work on evaluation, including the development of the "NSO Scorecard", an Excel-based descriptive rating scale that allows National Sport Organizations (and soon, provincial and community sport organizations) to self-evaluate their progress in CS4L/LTAD implementation.

Tugend makes the point that we are conditioned to mindlessly rely on numbers as indicators of success and value. How many hits did it get? How many friend requests? How many horsepower does it put out? How many medals did we win?

Did you know that when you walk into a rec centre in Calgary in the next few weeks that you would see Active for Life graphics on the displays?

We were recently approached by Champions at the City of Calgary Recreation department who were interested in spreading the word about Active for Life / Actif pour la vie. As a result we created five different graphics that are being shown in 75 different rec centres around the Calgary area. From that first partnership, with the support of the CPRA we have been able to partner with almost 20 organizations and municipalities across Canada including – the Cities of Red Deer, Kamloops, Ottawa, Vancouver, Wood Buffalo, Esquimalt, Dauphin, Smithers, Quesnel, Spray Lake and North Vancouver and as well as the Pacific Institute of Sport Excellence and the Richmond School District - who will soon be displaying the graphics in their faciltiies.

We would like to extend an open invitation to any organization who would like to become an Active for Life Champion and spread the word using these graphics. If you have space to show these graphics on displays in your facility, on your website, in a recreation guide or in another format, please contact us, and we will assist in providing you with the graphics, in French, English or both, with your logo added if necessary, free of charge.

With school upon us, parents and families are also gearing up for a new sport season – registration nights, assessments, tryouts, new equipment, new coaches and teammates. Now is the time to examine the programs and teams your child is a part of and maybe try out some new things!

When examining sport programs and teams there are a few key areas to look at:

1. Overall Structure – is the organization following the Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) Plan that has been designed by that sport’s national body?
2. Coaches – is your child’s coach an NCCP certified coach in that sport? Has she kept her certification current by completing the Making Ethical Decisions module and other professional development opportunities?
3. Practices vs. Competitions – is the amount of training and competition appropriate for your child’s age (as specified in the sport’s LTAD plan i.e. more practices than games)?
4. Equipment – is there enough equipment for every child? Is the size and type of equipment appropriate for the children’s age?
5. Individuality – are there measures in place to provide a safe and positive environment for children who are at different stages of development or for athletes with disabilities?

On September 17th, CBC Sports, ParticipACTION and True Sport are presenting Sports Day in Canada. Sports Day in Canada is a national celebration of sport, with events happening in communities all across the country.

You can find an event in your area on September 17th or during the week leading up to Sports Day (Sept 10th – 17th). Or if you have a great idea for an event you can organizer, register and promote your own event and invite your friends and others in your community to join in! Experience a new sport – like Ringette at the many “Come Try Ringette” events; watch some Train to Compete and Train to Win athletes at competitions like the 2011 Canadian Wakeboard Championships in Kamloops, BC or take a coaching or officiating course at clinics like the NCCP Super Clinic at Bill Crothers High School in Unionville, Ontario.

We would like to personally welcome you to the new Canadian Sport for Life website and now the new CS4L Blog. Over the past year together we have all made some big leaps in the CS4L movement. We have had the opportunity, with the support of B2Ten to start building the movement from “the bottom up” with our Actif pour la Vie / Active for Life initiative, we have entered the next phase of the movement – Phase 3: implementation, and we now have refreshed our website to make it more user friendly and are entering the world of social media with our Twitter account, Facebook page and now the blog.

The CS4L Blog will be an area for CS4L Champions – you – to interact with and learn from the Leadership Team as we talk about the great work that is happening in Canada, and around the world, and delve into our areas of expertise and hot button topics.