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Pictured below and right Troy visited St
George’s Park Football Centre in the UK who
offer a full size indoor soccer pitch for training
and games
It was an amazing opportunity to
explore and investigate a topic that
I am extremely passionate about,
and believe can play a significant role
in the future of young people in
Australia!”
Pictured left Entrance to the
Twickenham Football stadium,
the home of English rugby
When setting out to finalise this Churchill Report, the objective was
to develop a tangible document that could be utilised by sports to
guide and/or challenge their current way of operation, and provide
authentic ideas or strategies that could be introduced to enhance
youth retention in community sport.
This document needed to be more than simply a report that
explained where I went, and whom I met with. Hence, this report
proposes a model for youth retention and discusses the key aspects
that impact each of the proposed nine components.
Pictured below Troy visited
Sir Winston’s statue in London’s
Parliamentary Square
The outstanding individuals and organisations that I visited all
helped to shape this report, through their willingness to share ideas,
resources and strategies around youth retention, and for that I am
truly indebted.
Pictured
below
Murrayfield
Rugby Stadium
in Scotland
One of the real challenges in sport is
that organisations or clubs when
looking at youth retention tend to focus on one part of the
puzzle. That is a great starting point, but it fails to recognise
the interconnected manner in which key components
influence each other.
By only addressing one aspect, you may get some small
improvements in retention or churn rates, but when you
have a direct focus (or an interconnected approach) on all
key components, then that’s where the real improvement
and success can be achieved.
The opportunity to meet with leaders in their field and examine
examples of best practice provided not only knowledge, but also
discussion and debate, and through proposing this model I hope that
it helps to encourage further debate around youth retention, and its
importance in community sport. I look forward to having ongoing
conversations and working with others in the industry to shape and
mould the proposed ‘Interconnected Model of Youth Retention’ into
a workable template that achieves significant community outcomes
that benefit youth participants and enable then to gain the positive
impact that sport can provide.
Thank you to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust of Australia for
providing an amazing opportunity to explore and investigate a topic
that I am extremely passionate about, and believe can play a
significant role in the future of young people in Australia.
My report looks to highlight discussions, make observations and
seeks to encourage community sport to potentially do things
differently.
Download Troy’s full report from our website
churchilltrust.com.au/fellows/detail/4038/Troy+Kirkham
Rewarding Australians Striving for Excellence
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