Sports Officials UKCEO's report
It has been a very exciting year for SOUK with a clear acceptance within the industry that we are the umbrella organisation representing sports officials. We had 25 National Governing Bodies in membership in the year 2009-2010; this has increased to a membership of 28 for the year 2010-2011, including several from the home countries.
Ahead of summarizing all the outstanding outcomes for the year, I must pay tribute to the Board of Directors for their endless support and commitment to drive forward the success of SOUK. The main areas of work this year have been around the launch of the National Occupational Standards (NOS), the formation and development of the Board and laying the foundations of the strategic plan. The Launch of the NOS took place in April with Howard Webb as the guest speaker. The feedback from the event was excellent which gave us a great platform of enthusiasm to build on. The formation and development of the board, including producing job descriptions for each role, and continuing to lay the foundations of the strategic plan for SOUK Ltd to take us through to 2010, we were assisted with this task by Pauline Harrison a consultant specializing in Governance. We are continuing to seek funding opportunities to deliver our key objectives, the most important being an e-learning platform; this we hope will be supported through Sport England. Funding opportunities in today’s economic climate continues to be a challenge with the comprehensive spending review taking effect across the sporting landscape.
Pat Smith continues to represent us on the SRA, although for the coming year I will take over this role as CEO. I have to date represented SOUK Ltd at SRA events including the CEO Conference and the Sport Club Awards and Conference. It would be remiss of me at this point not to mention the loss of a long standing colleague and member of SOUK Ltd, Rob Jeffries, who tragically died in May from his injuries from a cycling accident. Rob had for many years represented British Cycling and was formally our representative on SRA (CCPR).
I continue to represent SOUK Ltd on the Professional Development Board which has taken a different strategic approach to meet the needs of the ever changing sporting landscape; this took the form of a full review of the purpose, goals and objectives of the Board and its relationship with SAFE. The Chairman David Pegg remains our representative on the Steering Committee of an Olympic Games legacy programme at the London Development Agency. All of these areas of work will be reported on more fully at the Committee Meeting which follows the AGM.
Our thanks to Jim Briggs who has continued to work on our website, and I urge our members to assist by providing articles, images and events so Jim can keep our website up to date and current.
My thanks to you all for your continued support in what can only be described as an exciting future for the support of officiating in sport.
Janie Frampton
Chief Executive Officer