The Scottish Government is fully committed to securing benefits and a lasting legacy from the London 2012 Games and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. There are more than 90 projects in Scotland across our six Inspire themes.
Inspire people
Willie Young, Coaching Champions
The Coaching Champions Inspire project offers people access to quality grassroots sports in rural Scottish communities. It’s a varied, well-designed and sustainably delivered programme that offers an experience of Olympic sports at their most fundamental level; helping young people get started in a sport by making sure they have quality coaches there in the first place.
What do you feel have been your greatest achievements?
The number of people we have managed to train is exceptional, given our small and our dispersed population. We attracted 453 people to attend 43 sports coaching courses within a concentrated month (but mostly a weekend) of our Coaching Champions programme.
What does it mean to you to be an Inspire mark project and be part of this special family of 2,500 projects that have been singled out by London 2012?
Coaching Champions are proud to ‘carry the flag’ of London 2012 within our rural and island part of the UK and Scotland, and feel we have actively brought the excitement and the closeness of the Games to our part of the country. We purchased Inspire pin badges for 200 participants – the people who were lucky enough to get one went off wearing them with pride into their own rural and island communities.
What are you most proud of?
Being able to plan and deliver a high-quality event that could proudly sport the Inspire mark and attract a high satisfaction rating from participants, as well as be recognised by our peers as a major contribution to UK sport.
Inspire projects
Inspire Through Sport – A Volunteer Legacy
Project organisers: Dumfries and Galloway College and Dumfries and Galloway Council
Theme: Sport
Inspire Through Sport – A Volunteer Legacy is a partnership project run by Dumfries and Galloway College and the Dumfries and Galloway Council Active Schools team to provide opportunities for young people to volunteer in sport. The project offers students the opportunity of training, mentoring and support to enable them to volunteer with locals schools and clubs.
The benefit to the student is a chance to develop their knowledge and skills in leadership, coaching and community development while giving local schools and community-based clubs in turn committed and inspired volunteers to deliver physical activity to the wider community. Having set themselves a target of 2,012 volunteer hours to be delivered to local children and young people encouraging participation in Olympic sports, Inspired Through Sport has already surpassed expectations.
Human Race
Project organiser: Human Race
Theme: Culture
Human Race is an exciting three-year project that will explore Scotland’s global impact on the history, culture and science of sport through a series of exhibitions and newly commissioned art works. The project will tour throughout Scotland in 2012.
Throughout the project, Human Race will invite the people of Scotland to connect with London 2012 and with the Olympic and Paralympic Values through exhibitions, events, talks, workshops, films and discussions.
On 13 January 2012, the public were invited to a screening of Daniel Warren’s Mercury, a 35-minute film that records dancers’ movement in dramatic high definition. After the film, a panel of experts from two of Scotland’s elite organisations, Scottish Ballet and the Scottish FA, led a post-screening discussion on the importance of understanding the needs of the elite performer and the parallels of strength and fitness.
A competition has also been launched for Art and Design students across Scotland to design a sports related product to feature in the Human Race exhibition in 2012. The winning and short-listed entries will feature as key exhibits in the touring exhibition planned for local, national and international audiences.
