Annual Review 2019/20
Sports University of the Year 2021*
Over 3,200
students competing across our campus leagues
1st place in British Universities and Colleges Sport rankings**
7
Major Industry Awards
1.2 million footfall across our facilities
3 million
impressions on our online Health and Wellbeing Hub
Over
20,000
students active on campus
*Awarded by the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide **Results correct at postponement of season in March 2020 Front page: Lauren Fretwell on her way to Gold in the Karate Women’s Senior Kata competition.
Rising to every challenge Sport is so important here at the University of Nottingham - a pillar stone of a world-leading global student experience. University of Nottingham Sport pride ourselves on a rich and varied offer, catering to all abilities from elite athlete to complete beginner. Last academic year really was a tale of two halves, from six months of activity ‘as usual’ followed by an unprecedented global pandemic that turned the world upside down. Nevertheless, our focus didn’t waver and we’re incredibly proud of our achievements which have been marked by several major industry awards including the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide Sporting University of the Year. From September to March, our performance athletes and teams were on track for yet another record-breaking season. As we prepared to host our third consecutive British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Big Wednesday, the University of Nottingham sat clear at the top of the BUCS overall league table. Over 20,000 students were regularly taking part in physical activity, with exciting new partners and events boosting our award-winning participation programme offer. From March, our world changed beyond recognition with the closure of all our facilities and suspension of in person activities. We had to be incredibly agile and resilient, quickly finding new ways to deliver our core goal of supporting our students and community to stay active and learn through sport. Within a week of the implementation of a national lockdown, University of Nottingham Sport launched our brand new Health and Wellbeing Home – a rich bank of online resources to support our community to stay active from home. We delivered live classes, uploaded a huge range of on-demand workouts, motivated our community with blogs and fitness tips and much more. Our student sports clubs and volunteers were also truly inspirational in the innovative way they responded to the crisis. They found new virtual ways to stay connected, support each other to manage their physical and mental wellbeing and stay involved with their local communities through fundraising and outreach. We were thrilled to celebrate many of their achievements at our annual Sports Ball, the first time the event has been hosted virtually in its 34-year history. In August, following the change in restrictions and a huge collaborative effort with colleagues across the whole University, we were able to reopen our sports facilities at Sutton Bonington, followed by our flagship David Ross Sports Village and Jubilee Sports Centre. Our spacious facilities were transformed to offer a Covid-secure environment for all visitors whilst retaining their welcoming atmosphere
and state-of-the-art equipment provision. We introduced a range of new measures, guidance and all our staff completed rigorous training to ensure excellent customer service levels were maintained. We’re incredibly proud of everyone; staff, students and volunteers; who have worked so hard and were therefore absolutely delighted to be recognised by several major national sporting industry awards. These included being named 2021 Sports University of the Year by the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide and the winners of the Excellence in Student Sporting Experience Award by the College and University Business Officers (CUBO) association. We’d also like to thank all those who continue to work alongside us to drive, enhance and support our offer. Our graduates remain an important contributor to our success and we’re delighted to be working with more of our alumni than ever before. The David Ross Sports Village, supported generously by alumnus David Ross, continues to be hugely impactful on all the activity we deliver. University of Nottingham Sport is a partnership between University of Nottingham Students’ Union and the University of Nottingham, and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank them once again for their support and investment. Our other partners, who hail from the sporting, community and commercial sector are critical to our offer, from National Governing Bodies of Sport to social media fitness giants Shreddy. The 2020/21 current academic year presents significant challenges for the University and University of Nottingham Sport remain committed to supporting our community. Our online Health and Wellbeing Home is going from strength to strength, adapting to demand as it grows. We’re fortunate to have a world-leading portfolio of indoor and outdoor facilities as well as outdoor space on campus. In such a difficult and uncertain time, we will continue to strive to ensure our students have a range of options – whether in person or virtual – to stay active, connected and manage their wellbeing. If you’d like to find out more about University of Nottingham Sport, we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch with us at sport@nottingham.ac.uk.
Dan Tilley Director of Sport
Josie Jessop Students’ Union Sports Officer
Annual Review 2019/20
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Responding innovatively to the needs of our community Over 20,000 students at the University of Nottingham take part in regular physical activity – almost 60% of the total student population. When our facilities had to close temporarily, it was imperative that we continued to provide our students and wider community with the support, resources and encouragement to stay active, connected and manage their mental health from home. Within a week of the temporary closures, University of Nottingham Sport launched a brand new online hub packed with free health and wellbeing content. The Health and Wellbeing Home included online workouts, challenges, tips, blogs and interactive activities. Members received the latest timetable and highlighted sessions directly to their inbox on a weekly basis. It received a fantastic reaction - the website hub had over 800,000 hits from March – August 2020, with over 200 online classes delivered, totalling 195,000 individual views. Overall our content on social media achieved over 3 million impressions. The figures reflect a coordinated team effort, delivering bespoke content for the variety of audiences our facilities and programmes would usually impact. Popular classes included Saturday yoga sessions and a series of inclusive exercises designed specifically for members with reduced mobility or recovering from injury. They were supported by special guests including a Run Recovery session from sports scholar and GB Hockey player Esme Burge. In partnership with Les Mills, we also provided UoN sport and fitness members with the opportunity to access over 1,000 on-demand workouts via their popular virtual portal.
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Annual Review 2019/20
On our Instagram channel, we focussed on interactive content allowing our community to get involved and shape what they wanted to see. Highlights included tips from our fitness team, question and answer sessions with our Sports Injury Clinic specialists as well as sports scholar and BUCS fencing champion Stefano Lucchetti and the creation of bespoke UoN Sport music playlists. Blog content covered a range of important topics, focussing particularly on mental wellbeing with advice on routine, selfcare and exercises safe to do at your desk or within small indoor spaces. Contributors included both experts from the University of Nottingham Sport staff team as well as our student ambassadors, offering a personal touch to content. Our team also continued to deliver personalised advice and the opportunity for members to connect on a 1-2-1 basis with one of our fitness team experts. From March – August 2020, we delivered over 100 virtual fitness consultations. Finally, we were incredibly proud to see how our student sports clubs, coaching staff and volunteers rose to the challenge of staying connected without their usual in person sessions. Highlights included weekly team training sessions adapted to complete at home, club fitness challenges and a series of themed socials, from fancy dress to online quizzes. Beyond sport, our clubs came together to celebrate our invaluable key workers with social media campaigns and raised thousands for charity with some incredibly creative challenges. Our Strength and Conditioning team also moved delivery online, tailoring programmes for our top student-athletes and their individual environments and then monitoring progress remotely. Student Lifestyle support continued virtually, with our advisors offering an important space for our sports scholars to discuss their progress. The Health and Wellbeing Home will continue to be incredibly important across the next academic year as we strive to cater for the changing needs of our students and community.
thumbs-up 3 million social media impressions on hub content
Over
200
online classes delivered
Over
195,000
online class views
Annual Review 2019/20
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thumbs-up 1.5 million website hits
Matt Dawson visits the Davd Ross Sports Village as Sodexo ambassador
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Annual Review 2019/20
27,958
social media followers
£3.7 million value of press coverage secured
Raising the University’s profile through sport University of Nottingham Sport continue to raise the profile of the University nationally through original and engaging content inspired by our students and alumni as well as hosting global sporting stars at our world-class facilities. Digitally, we continue to be a very influential channel growing faster than any other in UK Higher Education Sport (28% over 2019/20). With a total of nearly 28,000 followers across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, our engagement is one of the highest in the sector. This year presented both an unprecedented challenge and opportunity as all activity from March onwards moved online (see pages 4-5). Our press coverage in 2019/20 has been extensive, reaching regional, national and international outlets including some of the UK’s top media publications including The Guardian, BBC News, BBC Sport, The Sun and The Daily Mail. We featured in over 50 press pieces, reaching over 407,000 readers – the equivalent value of £3.7 million advertising space.
Feature artwork for our Water Polo Headliner
Engaging stories included that of Hall of Fame inductee, alumnus Sir Denis Follows CBE (English, 1930), who was instrumental in lifting the ban on women’s football in 1970 and as Secretary of the Football Association during the 1966 World Cup, even slept with the mascot under his bed! A visit from Matt Dawson as part of our partnership with Sodexo and Rugby Union Centenary celebrations also made national sporting headlines. Ahead of the Covid-19 outbreak, we delivered three of our extremely popular Headliner events, focussing on key fixtures for our teams in the BUCS leagues as well as giving our students the opportunity to play or spectate at professionally delivered and marketed events. Our American Football and Squash Headliners, sponsored by RedBull, reached 12.5K live stream viewers globally – a 50% increase on the 2018/19 series. Our professional squash franchise team, competing in the Premier Squash league featured eight top 100 players including former World No.1 Nick Matthew and University of Nottingham student, Coline Aumard, ranked #34 globally. Lastly, the elite sporting individuals and teams who use our state-of-the-art facilities remain hugely influential in the world of sport, health and fitness. Visitors in 2019/20 included the Chinese National Badminton team who based part of their Olympic preparations at the David Ross Sports Village, Vitality Roses England Netball squad and the New Zealand National Netball team. Multiple Paralympic Gold medallists Ollie Hynd and Richard Whitehead are also regular users of our world-class High Performance Zone.
Sir Denis Follows with the 1966 World Cup mascot
Annual Review 2019/20
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Providing sectorleading health and fitness opportunities Supported by our extensive health and fitness facilities, the University of Nottingham continues to have the highest number of sport and fitness members within in the sector – over 16,000. For these members, we offer an unrivalled package and despite the unprecedented challenges of 2020, we continue to innovate and invest to meet demand. In September 2019, in partnership with Life Fitness, we completed a significant upgrade of our fitness equipment range within the Jubilee fitness suite including an exciting range of IC7 bikes. These indoor Group Exercise bikes allowed us to enhance our group exercise programme with new indoor cycling and Coach by Colour classes at the centre. Our team at Sutton Bonington also launched a new tailored Gym Start programme to support our community to build their confidence in the fitness suite environment. Our outdoor facilities remain amongst the best in the country and our team were once again recognised with a major industry award, achieving the Institute of Groundsmanship’s Redexim Charterhouse / Kubota University / College Grounds Team of the Year 2019. When our health and wellbeing offer moved online during the temporary closures (see pages 4-5), our facilities and operations team worked tirelessly behind-the-scenes to ensure our facilities were Covid-secure and ready to once again welcome our members and community.
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Annual Review 2019/20
We introduced a range of stringent safety measures, policies and procedures including enhanced cleaning, installation of handwashing and cleaning stations and the implementation of a pre-booking system for all activities to ensure numbers within facilities were limited to safe levels. Our health and fitness spaces were also carefully rearranged to maintain important social distancing. Finally, all our staff attended extensive additional training ahead of reopening to deliver these measures and maintain our excellent customer service. Following this, we were delighted to be able to reopen our state-of-the-art campus facilities at the David Ross Sports Village, Jubilee campus and Sutton Bonington ahead of the 2020 Autumn term. Our Sports Injury Clinic client base continues to grow as we welcome members of the local community through our NHS relationship. The Clinic team continued to deliver their vital services in the safest way possible throughout the pandemic, operating from the new Cripps Health Centre during the temporary closures and offering virtual consultations initially to all patients.
Over
Over
62,000
9,000
16,000
group exercise class workouts completed
visitors to the climbing wall
UoN sport and fitness members
Annual Review 2019/20
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Supporting our students to excel at the elite level Sitting in first place in the University overall sports leagues at the pause of the 2019/20 season, University of Nottingham were on track for another record-breaking year. Despite the heartbreak of ending competition so abruptly, we are incredibly proud of the commitment of our students, coaches and support staff who work tirelessly to realise the potential of every athlete. Ahead of March 2020, University of Nottingham’s student athletes had excelled across the board. 68 individual medals had been won and 34 league titles already secured, with many events yet to take place. Promotions to the top tier of their respective sport means we’ll have 25 teams competing in the highest leagues in 2020/21. In November, we posted record results at the BUCS Track Cycling championships in Manchester with 6 gold and 4 silver medals. This incredible medal haul earned our Track Cycling squad the 2020 BUCS Team of the Year award across all sports. The following weekend, competing on home soil at the David Ross Sports Village, our Table Tennis squads dominated the BUCS Individual Championships winning all five gold medal matches. Victories for Yang Diruiqi and David McBeath in the singles were followed by three golds in the mixed, women’s and men’s doubles events.
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Annual Review 2019/20
Fast-forward to February 2020 at the BUCS Nationals and Nottingham students achieved a record 16 podium finishes including successful defence of their titles for 2018/19 champions Lauren Fretwell (pictured front page) and Dylan Traves in the Karate event. The highlight of the team season, BUCS Big Wednesday, due to be hosted in Nottingham, did not take place, however 16 Green and Gold teams had qualified for the finals, including Championship spots for both Table Tennis teams, Men’s Badminton, Women’s Hockey, Men’s Squash and Men’s Tennis. The event is due back in Nottingham in 2022 and we can’t wait. Our cohort of sports scholars continue to be critical not only to our performance success, but also off the pitch. This year they delivered over 1,800 voluntary hours supporting programmes across the board including coaching and ambassador work. Greenaway scholar Esme Burge (pictured overleaf), who earned selection for the Senior GB Hockey squad last summer and continues to fight for a place at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, was named 2020 BUCS Sportswoman of the Year. Amongst the additions to our athlete support package in 2019/20, was a new gait analysis service – the first to be offered by a UK University and which provides cuttingedge technology from within our Sports Injury Clinic. We are also committed to supporting Clean Sport, protecting the values and spirit of sport. We will be embedding this in all we do by focussing on educating our athletes, coaches and support staff in the Clean Sport policies of our national and international governing bodies. Once again thank you to our supporters who make all this possible by their continued support for our scholarship programme and investment into world-class facilities and coaching. Finally, to our University of Nottingham student athletes – your determination and talent continues to amaze us every year – congratulations on all your achievements!
1st place in the BUCS overall rankings*
104
14
league titles and medals won
senior international representatives
Stefano Lucchetti *First position at the postponement of the BUCS season in March 2020.
BUCS Champion – Men’s Fencing (Sabre) World Top 50 Fencer International Law LLM UoN sports scholar
Annual Review 2019/20
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“The University of Nottingham has given me an amazing student athlete experience. Having access to world-class facilities and coaches has been instrumental in allowing me make the jump to Senior International Hockey. The support team behind the scenes have played a huge role in enabling me to gain a top-class degree alongside competing at the international level on the hockey pitch.”
Esme Burge BUCS Sportswoman of the Year 2019/20 Greenaway Sports Scholar GB Senior International BSc Psychology
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Annual Review 2019/20
BUCS team champions* – 2019/20
BUCS team finalists* – 2019/20
Canoe Slalom – Mixed Team
Men’s Badminton
Canoe Slalom – C2
Women’s Hockey
Canoe Slalom – Overall
Men’s Squash
Karate – Mixed Team Kata
Men’s Table Tennis
Karate - Women’s Team Kumite
Women’s Table Tennis
Karate – Overall Team
Men’s Tennis
Track Cycling – Men’s Team Pursuit
Senior international representatives
Track Cycling – Men’s Overall Team Track Cycling – Women’s Team Pursuit Track Cycling – Women’s Team Sprint Men’s Rowing - Lightweight 4x
BUCS individual champions – 2019/20
Charlie Smith BSc Industrial Economics
Men’s Canoe
Stefano Lucchetti LLM International Law
Men’s Fencing
Jared Rand BSc Management
Men’s Futsal
Thomas Lamb MSc Sports & Exercise Medicine
Men’s Futsal (Partially sighted) Men’s Hockey
Johnnie Torjussen
Badminton
Men’s Singles
Cameron Paul
Boxing
Men’s U51kg
Alex Cheung
Boxing
Men's U52Kg
Sean Cicchi MEng Civil & Environmental Engineering
Sebastian Garry
Track Cycling
Men’s Individual Pursuit
Esme Burge BSc Psychology
Women’s Hockey
Sebastian Garry
Track Cycling
Men’s Points Race
Dylan Traves BArch Architecture
Karate
Sophie Lankford
Track Cycling
Women’s Points Race
Lauren Fretwell MSci Biology
Karate
Stefano Lucchetti
Fencing
Men’s Sabre
Men’s Lacrosse
Amy Platten
Judo
Women’s U48kg Dan
Mason Gorman MSc Business & Management
Alexandra de Prendergast
Jamie Barden LLB Law
Men’s Rugby Union 7s
Jui Jitsu
Women's Individual
Dylan Traves
Karate
Men’s Senior Kata
Ethan Treacy BSc Industrial Economics
Men’s Speed Skating
Lauren Fretwell
Karate
Women’s Senior Kata
Owain Taylor MSc Sustainable Building Technology
Men’s Squash
Ricardo Gutjahr
Pool
9-ball
Calum Morrison BSc Physics
Men’s Table Tennis
Chloe Dutton
Taekwondo
WT Sparring +73KG
Thangaeswaran Nithirajah
Taekwondo
74KG
David McBeath BSc Sports Rehabilitation
Men’s Table Tennis
David McBeath
Table Tennis
Men’s Singles
Anna Keefe BA Politics & International Relations
Women’s Volleyball
Yang Diruiqi
Table Tennis
Women’s Singles
Zhang Sining & Liu Tianyuan
Martha Bullen BSc Biology
Women’s Volleyball
Table Tennis
Men’s Doubles
Yang Diruiqi & Liu Haoyu
Table Tennis
Women’s Doubles
Yang Diruiqi & Zhang Sining
Table Tennis
Mixed Doubles
*2020 BUCS Big Wednesday event postponed Annual Review 2019/20
13
Delivering an outstanding student sporting experience
“I felt really empowered in my role and loved organising the Girls’ Night In events and supporting my fellow students to feel confident trying new sports and activities. Being an Engage ambassador has really enriched my time at the University of Nottingham and I’ve learnt so much that will be useful for my future career.” Alex Pitt
Engage ambassador 2019/20 MA Classics
*First position at the postponement of the BUCS season in March 2020. 14
Annual Review 2019/20
2020 CUBO Excellence in Student Sport Experience Winner
BUCS Digital Engagement Award – Empower campaign
5,583 student sports club members
Alongside our health and wellbeing offer, University of Nottingham Sport and our student sports clubs provide a bespoke range of activities to encourage our students to stay active and try new things during their time at University. We were incredibly proud that the impact of these programmes, which reach thousands of participants annually, were recognised by the College and University Business Officers (CUBO) Association who named us 2020 Excellence in Student Sporting Experience winners.
The campaign was a huge success within a very challenging target market. Over 600 students have attended at least one Empower activity and 75 have embedded long-term lifestyle changes through regular attendance.
The last academic year presented a huge challenge for our engagement programmes with all in person activity paused from March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, we remain incredibly proud of the significant impact our programmes and club delivered to our community, both before lockdown and during our closures.
Our extensive network of 75 sports clubs continue to be instrumental across all department activities. In addition to their outstanding achievements in the BUCS team and individual leagues and events, our clubs continued to give thousands of hours of volunteering time to support the wider student experience.
Our Engage programme, which provides drop in sessions for all abilities, once again grew its participant base by 16% recording over 5,700 attendances.
In 2019/20 examples included our Women’s Lacrosse club setting up a partnership to support Kenya Lacrosse, UoN Men’s Hockey raising over £10,000 for Movember and UoN Sailing once again delivering the award-winning Snakebite event. We enjoyed celebrating their successes at the first ever virtual UoN Sports Awards in May and our Participation Club of the Year Tennis were also shortlisted for national recognition in the BUCS 2020 Club of the Year category.
In October 2019, we launched Empower, supported by funding from Sport England and BUCS. Empower aims to engage inactive female students through education on the social, mental and physical benefits of being active. The programme includes sporting sessions, health workshops and events all supported by an online community.
UoN Sport also partnered with on-trend fit-tech brand Shreddy, the first such partnership in HE sport. With over 135,000 followers and promoting accessible online fitness content, Shreddy offered the perfect platform to amplify our message promoting female participation. On our own channels we exceeded 55,000 social media impressions and were therefore delighted to be awarded with the 2020 BUCS Digital Engagement award for the campaign. Our popular intramural campus leagues continued to grow in popularity, with over 3,200 students taking part in 2019/20 demonstrating 6% year-on-year growth. Scheduled for March 2020, the new IMS All Stars event may have been postponed but we look forward to another launch opportunity in 2021. The event will bring together the best of our intramural teams to compete against our club sides for an excellent showcase of sport on campus and complements the existing IMS Varsity competition against Loughborough.
Annual Review 2019/20
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“I loved every second of my role this year from raising awareness of our inclusive campaigns on social media to having the opportunity to attend the latest industry training. A personal highlight was working with the young disabled people at Monty Hind Youth Club. It was such a positive experience for myself and the other volunteers and a unique opportunity outside of campus.” Ella Wyras
Disability Sport ambassador 2019/20 BSc Biology
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Annual Review 2019/20
Championing inclusive sport The University of Nottingham continues to lead the way in designing and delivering inclusive sport opportunities and remains the only institution to employ a full-time Disability Sport and Inclusion Officer. Our health and fitness offer continues to be one of the most inclusive in the sector with a range of tailored initiatives to support students to feel confident accessing our facilities and programmes. In 2019/20 our team delivered over 100 supported fitness sessions to students with a disability or long-term health condition, we offer Gym Quiet times and extended hours at Ramadan and over 400 students accessed our discounted membership rates following a disability referral. To enhance our provision further this year, we released four new accessibility videos to build confidence amongst students unsure about how to navigate our facilities. Across our programmes, we offer specially-designed inclusive sessions and events to engage with new students. Over 90 attended our Engage Inclusive Sports Day in October and we offered year-round sessions in 10 different sports through the Engage programme. Supporting our student volunteers also remains key – over 140 committee members from 58 clubs attended our Welfare training in 2019.
Over
420
UoN sport and fitness memberships issued following disability referrals
One of our key focuses in the 2019/20 academic year was to drive a cultural shift around LGBT+ inclusion in sport at the University of Nottingham. We worked closely with the Students’ Union LGBT+ Officer and network to action changes to our membership processes, introducing more private changing and to drive awareness amongst our student clubs and programmes. This included leading and implementing a social media campaign in November around Rainbow Laces in which 65 club and intramural teams took part and producing a video demonstrating why highlighting LGBT+ inclusion is so important to Nottingham. We’re incredibly proud of the progress made and the achievements of our community; in total the University raised over £2,000 to support the Stonewall organisation and we were shortlisted for the 2020 BUCS Diversity and Inclusion award. Finally, we continue to work closely with partner organisations to bring elite para-events and athletes to the University offering inspirational opportunities to our students. In 2019/20 we hosted the National Boccia Championships and British Universities Wheelchair Basketball Championships as well as training camps for England Para-Swimming, GB Goalball, GB Para-Table Tennis and the GB Invictus Games squad. Close partnerships are critical to delivering our offer – we’d like to thank Swim England - Para Swimming, Boccia England, Goalball UK, British Judo, British Wheelchair Basketball and Active Notts as well as inclusive sport organisations Invictus Games, CP Sport and the Activity Alliance for all their support and guidance.
Over
Over
club volunteers attended welfare training
clubs and teams engaged in our #RainbowLaces campaign
140
65
Annual Review 2019/20
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Inspiring activity in our local community The ability of sport to build connections within a community and make a positive impact on peoples’ lives cannot be underestimated. It’s why we continue to invest significant time and resources to encourage the community to visit our world-class facilities and support our students to play their part in supporting local community projects.
The Sport for Good Nottingham project, delivered in partnership with global charity Laureus as well as local Nottingham partners, reached over 200 children from 7 different schools. 77 volunteer leaders, including 46 University of Nottingham students, supported the schoolchildren to design and deliver their own social action projects. We’re very pleased to have secured funding from Sport England to continue the programme for a further 2 years.
University of Nottingham Sport’s Leadership Academy continues to go from strength-to-strength offering our students invaluable work experience and the chance to nurture their leadership skills whilst contributing to the community they live and study in. Over 200 students volunteered, across all our programmes with 1,885 young people reached by our programmes. We supported those leaders through our Qualification Fund to access over 280 hours of certified training - skills that they can take to their future career roles.
We continue to work closely with the David Ross Education Trust (DRET) who hosted their Winter Cup with us once again. The event welcomed 980 young people to the David Ross Sports Village to compete and meet top sporting stars as well as University of Nottingham sport scholars. Other DRET events included a Performance Rowing Conference and Invitational Netball tournament.
We work closely with the University’s Widening Participation Team to offer a range of opportunities for young people to visit our campuses, learn about all aspects of University life and raise aspirations. Over 180 schoolchildren have attended our Discovery Days, where alongside sports sessions they learn about healthy eating and nutrition. Our Sport in Schools programme also expanded to offer 13 different sports. Other highlights included a new partnership with NFL UK – 13 club members from our Women’s Flag American Football club undertook their brand new leadership training and then delivered flag sessions in 4 Nottingham schools. Over 120 schoolchildren took part and our volunteers even supported them to enter their first tournament.
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Annual Review 2019/20
Our facilities remain an important venue for our community and have welcomed thousands of members of the public over the last academic year. Our Swim School continued to grow, supporting 680 children and adults (4.5% increase) to develop their swimming skills with over 4,500 lessons delivered up to March 2020.
1,901
1,885
212
voluntary hours delivered by student leaders
schoolchildren in Nottingham engaged by our outreach projects
students volunteering in outreach projects
Annual Review 2019/20
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Building a sustainable future In a fast-moving and significantly challenging landscape, University of Nottingham Sport continue to seek ways to ensure our activities are sustainable. We drive income across a diverse range of areas including sports and fitness memberships, major events, partnerships and continually innovate to ensure sustained engagement in our service offering. The University of Nottingham remains one of the leading UK host venues for a range of sports and their National Governing Bodies as well as key educational partners. Working alongside Nottingham Conferences from September 2019 to March 2020, we hosted sporting events on campus which generated over £840,000 and welcomed thousands of athletes and their supporters to Nottingham. Significant events ahead of the national lockdown included November’s Dunlop British Junior Squash Championships where over 450 of the UK’s finest junior squash players competed in Nottingham as well as the Mark Bates Ltd Senior National Table Tennis Championships. We were also delighted to be selected by British Judo to host the IBSA Judo Grand Prix in April 2020, an event set to be the final qualifier for visually impaired athletes ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games. Although the event remains postponed, we look forward to working alongside British Judo to welcome the world’s top Paralympic judokas to Nottingham in the future. In addition, despite the postponement of both 2020 and 2021 BUCS Big Wednesday events, we were delighted to confirm the return of the UK’s largest student team sport event to Nottingham in 2022. Partnerships remain incredibly important for the department and we’re proud to work with a huge range of organisations who enhance and support our offer to students and our wider community.
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Annual Review 2019/20
In 2019/20, in the first partnership of its kind within the Higher Education sport sector, we joined forces with leading fit-tech brand Shreddy who signed as headline partners for University of Nottingham Sport’s female participation programmes. Popular with students, Shreddy aim to offer accessible online fitness content, innovative products to enhance workouts and a supportive female community and are a perfect fit for our target market. The partnership announcement reached over 12,600 online users through our channels and the Shreddy team have regularly profiled the Empower programme and covered our March 2020 Girls’ Night In live on their stories for their 190,000 followers. This sponsorship adds to the existing relationship with RedBull, who support our Headliner series (see page 6-7). We also welcomed on board the Clubhouse Café (through our existing relationship with Sodexo) as our Official Event Partner to provide catering for several major events throughout the year. A new agreement was also confirmed with Newitts, one of the UK’s leading retailers of sporting equipment, to enhance the range of equipment on offer to our student sports clubs and programmes. Finally, UoN Sport collaborated in March with Bala Sport to support Sustainability Week and Fairtrade Fortnight. Our Men’s and Women’s Football and Futsal clubs now train with the revolutionary Fairtrade Bala balls raising awareness of the importance of ethically-sourced equipment. We also continue to work closely with our existing partners including Sport England, Laureus, British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS), the Rugby Football Union (RFU), Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) and the Football Association (FA) who fund recreational and leadership opportunities for our students. Our performance programme for elite student athletes is supported by National Governing Bodies including volleyball, women’s football, swimming, fencing, table tennis, tennis and rugby union. In the 2019/20 season our tennis programme was awarded Tier 3 status by the LTA – the top level – and cements our set up as one of the top in the UK. Our official Talented Athletes Scholarship Scheme (TASS) was the second largest programme in the country during the 19/20 season and continues to deliver outstanding support for elite and talented performance athletes across the region across a range of sports.
£270,000
secured in external grant funding
£840,000
generated by hosting external events on campus*
A female student enjoys the activities on offer at our popular Girls’ Night In, supported by Shreddy. *Pre-March 2020 facility closures. Annual Review 2019/20
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Connecting with our alumni The University of Nottingham alumni community now stands at over 280,000 world-wide, many of whom benefitted from being involved in sport and physical activity during their time at University. The Covid-19 outbreak may have impacted our traditional calendar of events, however the support of our sporting alumni remained absolutely instrumental in our successes. In 2019/2020, we celebrated 100 years of Rugby Union at the University of Nottingham – an incredible milestone. Together with our current Men’s and Women’s Rugby Clubs we enjoyed reconnecting former teammates, sharing memories and showcasing our aspirations for the future of the sport at Nottingham. One of the highlights of the celebrations was a visit from alumnus England Rugby legend and World Player of the Year, Brian Moore (Law, 1984) Brian joined a training session and led a question and answer session with our players, an invaluable learning opportunity for the students. We also honoured Sir Denis Follows CBE (English, 1930) who was instrumental in lifting the 50 year ban on women’s football when Secretary of the FA and resisted intense pressure from Margaret Thatcher’s government to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics when heading the British Olympic Association. An inspiring interview with his daughter Maggie celebrating his life and achievements made national news with 218,000 views on the online Guardian feature alone. We are incredibly grateful for the continued support of alumna Dr Deng Yaping, 4 times Olympic Table Tennis gold medallist and Chinese athlete of the 20th Century. Dr Deng visited us in 2020 to progress the expansion of her popular table tennis and badminton scholarship programme for student-athletes from China. Facilitated through Dr Deng, we were also delighted to welcome the Chinese National badminton set up to train at the David Ross Sports Village as part of their Tokyo 2020 preparations. Our student players trained alongside the squad – the top team in the world – offering a truly unique and inspiring experience for the young athletes.
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Annual Review 2019/20
We look forward to officially inducting both Brian and Sir Denis into the University of Nottingham Sport Hall of Fame in the future alongside Dr Deng Yaping, our first ever inductee back in 2017. When activity moved online following the Covid-19 outbreak, we were thrilled to see such positive engagement from our sporting alumni community. Our new alumni profiling series featured 9 graduates, who shared openly with students their professional journeys and how involvement in sport impacted their careers. We also now have a formalised online platform for our Sports Officer network via LinkedIn which is already proving invaluable Using the popular #ThrowbackThursday campaign, over 250,000 users online interacted with our heritage images courtesy of Manuscripts and Special Collections. Some of these were over 100 years old and included the former lido at Highfields Park as well as the 1910/11 Ladies Hockey team. University of Nottingham Sport would once again like to thank all our sporting alumni who donate hours of their time to support our current students. Our Sports Board, comprised of University alumni, continue to be critical advisors and advocates to our team, devoting a huge amount of time to supporting our offer. Finally, we were especially delighted to see four of our volunteers recognised at the University’s 2019 Volunteer Awards in October. Martin Austin, Stephen Hadfield, Ed Tarlton and Aymun Khan were all nominated for their exceptional commitment to promoting sport and wellbeing at the University.
N.U.C Hockey Team 1910-11
£27,000
generated through Sport fundraising campaigns
Over
250,000
online impressions for our digital ‘throwback’ campaign
9
alumni profiled in our new online series
England Rugby legend and World Player of the Year, alumnus Brian Moore (Law, 1984) visiting campus as part of our Rugby Centenary celebrations.
Annual Review 2019/20
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For more information: sport@nottingham.ac.uk +44 (0) 115 74 87000 nottingham.ac.uk/sport @UoNSport