East Midlands Leadership Academy Success

Sport Nottinghamshire and Leicester-Shire and Rutland Sport hosted the East Midlands Leadership Day on Thursday 18^th February 2016 in the Lee Westwood Sports Centre at Nottingham Trent University to 34 aspiring young leaders from Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. The young leaders have been recognised by their schools as being talented individuals who have the ability to support and inspire others.

The aim of the leadership day was to broaden the horizons of the young leaders and increase their awareness of the vastness of the sporting world and to show them all the different routes they can explore besides playing and coaching sport.

They were divided into two groups and participated in six workshops during the day, including a nutrition workshop, S&C workshop and a multi skills workshop. Para-canoe athlete Kelda Wood joined the groups at the end of the day to give a motivating speech about getting into sports and encouraged them to not be disheartened if life presented a diversion when chasing their dreams. Kelda also illustrated how important it is for the young leaders to give 100% of themselves when chasing a sporting career, as sport is a lifestyle and not a job. Kelda is the founder of the charity Climbing Out, which helps young people facing life changing injuries.

Tim Stevenson professional Strength and Conditioning Coach who trains Nottinghamshire sporting athletes Ollie Hynd, Charlotte Henshaw and Rich Whitehead gave an informative session that gave an outline about the basics of Strength and Conditioning coaching as well as touching upon performance mind-set. Tim is set to be a Strength and Conditioning coach for the British Paralympic team for the Rio Paralympics 2016. Other guest seminar leaders included award winning multi sports coach Gordan Fearne and Hannah Brooks who works in sports psychology in the high performance centre at the University of Birmingham.

Leicester-Shire & Rutland Leader Jonny Nicholson said:"A highly interactive, informative and useful day, full of various sessions led by experts in their field. This was an excellent experience for us as young leaders as we learnt valuable transferable skills that will enrich our leading in and around Leicestershire and Rutland".

The day presented an in depth look at all the different exit routes young leaders can explore and it highlighted how there are many diverse careers and opportunities to explore within sport.