Friday 8th December 2017

Welcome to your Weekly Roundup featuring articles from across Premier.

For more information on any of the articles featured below or for any general enquires, please email [email protected]

Activators are Back!

At your request, we are excited to announce the running of Activator Courses during the 2018 Franchisee National Training Event!

The courses will be based at Premier HQ and running over the 15th and 16th February 2018.

Treat your Activity Professionals

This year Activity Professionals are welcome to attend the National Training Event Awards Ceremony on the evening of the 15th February - book your tickets below!

New Pilot with Youth Sport Trust hopes to transform children’s coaching

Premier are pleased to announce the pilot of the TOP Coach programme in partnership with the Youth Sport Trust, UK Coaching and British Gymnastics.

This is in response to the need to get children moving more and a growing demand from head teachers for an easily recognisable accreditation mark. Introducing child centred training for children’s coaches in the school sport environment is the vision behind a new programme led by a children’s charity and UK Coaching.

Find out more here...

Train with Premier are Recruiting...

Do you know anyone who’s got what it takes to be a Premier tutor? Train with Premier are looking for tutors and assessors to deliver a number of 1st4sport qualifications from our accredited centres across the UK. We are keen to progress hard working, high quality individuals in the next step of their career. For more information please see the full job spec here...

Partnership Update...

The above shows the final areas which have been awarded lots of money from Sport England for the Place Based Pilots which Jane told you all about back in the summer. The below link will take you through to some further information.

https://www.sportengland.org/localpilots/

We aren’t fully aware of the details of what the projects involve but we are confident that Premier can support the delivery at some level in all of them. So, remember to demonstrate your value locally and discuss how you can complement the delivery!

Let us know how you get on by contacting Jane Hannah on [email protected] or 07776 445500.

The Christmas Genie is Granting Wishes Next Week!

We received hundreds of entries for our Christmas Genie campaign, which was rolled out in November, with loads of inspirational, heart-warming, and incredibly sad stories submitted by parents.

We managed to whittle it down to four very special children - a very difficult job indeed, considering the calibre of entries!

So next week, Premier are hitting the road to surprise them with their Christmas wishes...

Monday 11th December - Dronfield

Andy Heald (Premier’s Northern Santa & National Training Director), Danny Melling (Premier Elf & Ops Director), and Gemma Howell (Marketing Executive), will be travelling to Dronfield to surprise Billy Bolsover at his school, with his Christmas wish - an Xbox One!

Billy was nominated by his mum because he’s had a very difficult year, having hundreds of seizures, and being diagnosed with epilepsy. This has caused Billy to develop anxiety when attending school - his mother has said...

“Thank you Premier, for allowing him to be a part of your groups and having first aid trained staff who I feel he is safe with. Had it not been for you, his life wouldn’t be as fun. The only time Billy is not anxious at school, is when he’s on a Premier activity.” The above quote really touched our hearts, and demonstrates why we do what we do, and how our activities can have a massive positive impact on the lives of children we work with. Well done to the Premier team in Dronfield!

Thursday 14th December - East Anglia

On Thursday, Premier COO Steve Eastaugh (Santa), Ops Director Frankie Worthington (Elf), and Gemma Howell will be surprising three children in Braintree, Felixstowe and Bury St Edmunds.

Visit #1

Our first visit in Braintree, is to surprise 6-year-old Lincoln Castell with a brand new personalised Barcelona football kit, an archery set and Lego. He has been a very brave and courageous little boy, with his father tragically passing away last month from brain cancer. He helped his mother to look after his father when he’d been ill, calling for help when he’d had a seizure, and getting help from passers by in the street outside their home.

His Mum said: “Lincoln is a sweet, caring young boy. He adores his Premier Sport clubs and does each one available to him after school and in the holidays. I believe he deserves a nice Christmas, although he probably won’t ask for anything himself - he’s probably ask for a bed for his cat!” We are honoured to be able to surprise Lincoln with his Christmas wishes, he is an incredibly brave and selfless little boy. Thoughts are with him and his whole family this Christmas.

Visit #2

Our second visit of the day is in Felixstowe, where we will be surprising 10-year-old Khori with a new BMX bike. Khori’s mum nominated him because he has never complained, and remained gracious, positive, and strong for the whole family, despite suffering through poverty and homelessness. “He deserves the world. He is kind, stands up to bullies for children who are too afraid to say anything, isn’t afraid to be himself (he takes gymnastics and does NOT care what anyone thinks! He is just amazing. I am proud to be his mother.”

We can’t wait to surprise Khori with his brand new bike!

Visit #3

Our final visit of the day is in Bury St Edmunds, where we are going to surprise 7 year old Kodie Pollock. Kodie’s mum Simone nominated him because he’s been very brave, as he’s currently in remission from cancer (a Wilm’s tumour).

His Mum said: “Kodie still has to have regular checks every three months to make sure nothing has come back. Kodie struggles academically and physically - he has pain in his legs a lot from the after effects of chemo. He’s such a happy, sociable little boy and deserves a treat.” We’ll be surprising Kodie with a trip to Legoland for his family this Christmas.

We’ll be joined by a camera crew when we conduct the four surprises, who’ll be creating an uplifting and emotional, very special Christmas video, which will be shared across the network, sent to all parents, and published on our Facebook/Twitter accounts. Watch this space...

Merry Christmas, everyone... and thank you all for being brilliant role models, inspiring so many children throughout the world!

Is Your Business Ready?

In April 2018 the National living wage will increase by 4.4% to £7.83. Minimum wage increases to: £7.38 for 21-24 year olds £5.90 for 18-20 year olds

Therefore, you will need to ensure your staff are paid accordingly. To do this without reducing your profits you need to increase your prices to at least cover your increased costs (all increases, not just in staff wages). We recommend you start planning NOW for your increases in April and inform customers early so that they too can factor this in to their budgets. For more information click here...

Don’t just play at Play-Trition...

Play-Trition is a huge opportunity to future proof your business by;

• Dramatically increasing your customer base
• Targeting different budgets
• Accessing parents earlier in their parental journey
• Providing an additional and unique service to primary schools

Yes early years is slightly different, yes it requires additional knowledge, yes it may not be your area of expertise, and yes those are all excuses to not diversify and future proof your business!

Emma Perry, our early years expert will be hosting another core support webinar on Monday 11th December at 11am to help in achieving all of the above.

The best time to start a new ‘curve’ is before you reach the peak of your existing one!

DON’T MISS IT!

Baseball Softball GoTo Rearranged...

The Baseball Softball UK GoTo Meeting is going to be rearranged for the new year, sorry about this. Please instead make yourselves available for the Play-Trition GoTo on Monday 11th at 11am instead. Before the Christmas break we will send you some further information about the potential BSUK partnership. Thank you everyone.

Missed a previous newsletter? Check out our archive...

We thought you would find it useful to create a Weekly News Update archive housing previous newsletters from this academic year. ‘Read more’ to catch up on any news you may have missed.