Dual Assurance Meeting – 6 May 2008.
Report of the Director of Sport
1
Outcome of the visit by the MCC
The MCC visited the University in February to discuss their academy
programme and Exeter’s involvement in it. Following the visit the MCC at
their meeting in March decided not to expand the programme, but would
continue to performance-monitor the existing centres. While this is not the
ideal outcome for Exeter, we have succeeded in highlighting what we do and
as a consequence the MCC have not extended MCCU status to another
University as they had at one stage planned to do.
2
Website
Following the creation of Corporate Services, and full-time web officer post
has been created and filled. The post holder Jo Miller will be providing one
day per week of web support for sport, which in the medium term will mean
that our site will not need to be hosted externally.
3
Facilities Update
The awarding of the contract for the indoor cricket school is imminent. It is
anticipated that the project will run slightly over the £1.5m budget.
Minor improvements to the café area are virtually complete, providing an
extended tennis office and a large meeting/training room.
4
Facilities Strategy
A meeting has been held with Geoff Wright who is carrying out the estate
master planning exercise for the University. This provided an opportunity to
express the concerns we have about access and car parking; until the proposals
for car parking are resolved it is not possible to move forward on the strategy
for the development of sports facilities, as the current car park space is pivotal
to any future plans.
5
Alumni Relations
Sport has been included as one of the “tick-box” items for 2008 graduating
students to support, under a new initiative launched by DARO. It is hoped
that the initiative will secure greater engagement from young graduates.
A number of useful relationships are being developed with prominent
graduates, with the support of DARO.
6
Olympic Holding Camps
The University will appear in the LOCOG brochure which will go to teams at
the Beijing Olympics, providing them with information about holding camps
prior to 2012. Over the next few years a number of direct approaches will also
be made to appropriately sized teams.
7
St Lukes
A very productive meeting took place to develop a greater understanding of
the circumstances relating to the St Lukes community, and the sports facilities
on the campus. A number of initiatives will be trialled this summer in an
attempt to increase the uptake of facilities there.
8
UECC
The development of a sports strategy for Tremough has stalled, following staff
sickness. It is disappointing, following the start of the process in September,
that we still do not have a draft strategy.
9
Communications
The Sports Office will be restructured during the summer, and the finishing
touches are now being put to the communications strategy. There were a
number of communications issues that came out of the staff survey, and we
will seek to address these through the new strategy.
10
Minor Capital Programme
The rolling replacement and minor capital works programme has now been
completed, showing how we anticipate the need for capital for projects over
the coming 5 years. This will undoubtedly provide us with some challenges,
which will be discussed with the Director of Finance in due course.
Phil Attwell
28 April 2008.