Honours Lab 2: Move the world, using sport as a tool for positive change – Kaelin Staats

During the start of the second Sport Studies lab of the Honours Talent Program “Move the world, using sport as a tool for positive change” I was wondering where I would stand at the end of the lab and what kind of challenges and opportunities I experienced. Now, at the end of the academic year and at the end of the lab, I can say that it was an bumpy road, with a lot of challenges, new people and great opportunities. I decided to write my process report in the way that I will first write a short text about what the projects was in big lines, in order to create a better view on what I exactly did and what I am still going to do. After that I described the practical issue and my role in the process in combination with the program learning outcomes.

Introduction of the process

At the beginning of the lab, I came in contact with George Groote and Rob de Waard through Fleur Medema. She called me during the beginning of the lab, that there was an vacancy which could maybe be a great opportunity for me. Although it had a lot of requirements that I couldn’t manage to fit, like working hours and time, I decided to get into a meeting with George and Rob. A really good decision.

George and Rob are from the John Schokker foundation. An foundation who wants to let every athlete in Groningen/Drenthe to be able to play at the highest level. Athletes who needs funding can request a funding and one of the boards of the foundations then decides if the athlete/team/club fits with the idea and vision of the foundation. Due to corona, the foundation wasn’t able to work and everything was going down. The founder of the foundation, John Schokker, asked Rob the Waard (old director of Huis voor de Sport Groningen, to write an advise report. One of the advices of Rob was to attract an ‘Aanjager’, the function that I applied for.

On the 13^th of April, I had the first conversation with George and Rob. I had no idea what to expect and was really curious who I was going to meet and what they were going to say. I thought it was just an conversation, but it happened to be a real job interview. Rob and George where explaining what the idea of the foundation is, what needed to happen and where asking questions about my vision on sports and what I thought of the plans. It was a really nice conversation and because of the good feeling we all had after the meeting, they decided to cancel the other conversations and to choose me for the function.

A week later, I met all the other members of the board and also the new members of the board because there where a lot of things going to change in that upcoming period. In order to create a good vision on what was changing, a short list of the advices of Rob de Waard:

1. General:

• Continue with the Foundation. There is certainly room for such an initiative in the province of Groningen/North Netherlands. But that is no longer possible in the current way of working and with the current organization. Far-reaching changes are necessary for a successful follow-up.

2. Specific:

• The voluntary and non-binding character of the organization will have to make way for a professional set-up and design;
• A (as yet part-time) professional person, a 'booster', will have to be sought and appointed, who will pull the cart on behalf of the board;
• The current 'triangle' with a board and two committees is sufficient and can therefore be maintained;
• The board will have to be partially refreshed, since the current chairman has indicated that he wants to stop;
• Both committees will have to be supplied with fresh and (partly young) blood;
• The Foundation's objective and target group can be expanded step by step, starting with the category 'young talents with disabilities';
• The catchment area should be more clearly defined and demarcated; to start with the entire provinces of Groningen and Drenthe and possibly supplemented in time with the province of Friesland;
• The current name of the Foundation bears the name of the initiator; for a successful relaunch, it is better to give the Foundation a neutral name;

I was assigned for the function of the ‘booster/aanjager’. In the first period, I was present at most of the meetings, most of the time just listening and making notes because all the names and everything around it was new for me. A big challenge, because it all went so fast. After the first few meetings, I created a good pictures for myself on what Rob was meaning with his advices, how I was going to start and what was really necessary for the organisation to make a fresh start.

I can say right now, that the organisation chose a new name which is going to be published during the first week of the summer holidays and during a sponsorship match between FC Groningen and Velocitas on the 27^th of July. The new name is going to be: Stichting Sporttalent Noord. This will be published mostly in newspapers of the area, through the website and through word-of-mouth marketing. Below you can find a picture of me with the new board, also the picture that will be used for the marketing channels.

The practical issue and the full process report with combination of the PLO’s.

In this lab, the emphasis would be mostly on my role as influencer. This fitted perfectly with my function at the foundation and the practical issue that I was going to face. The practical issue can’t be described in one sentence, but in a few more words. My role in foundation is being a booster (in Dutch called aanjager), with all different challenges that I was going to face. The practical issue can be described at creating more awareness in the neighbourhoods of the foundation, finding new sponsors and to help the foundation grow. This includes projects as:

-          Neighbourhoods research

-          Marketing plan

-          Attract new sponsors

-          Do research about new sports

-          Look for new talents, get into contact with different clubs and write stories about the athletes of who they give a budget and where they stand right now.

-          Writing stories for the different channels

-          Creating more content to show to different stakeholders and in order to attract new sponsors

o   Being active on social media, and with this creating more social media accounts.

I will do more stuff then the list above, but this is a good overview of the main activities that I will do for the foundation in a longer period. This is also one of the reasons why there isn’t a prototype or something to show at this moment. During the first conversations with the board, we agreed that this would be a long term project, at least till the end of 2022. This is also on the basis of the advice of Rob de Waard, that it should be a long term project and that I will help them grow for a longer period.

Looking at PLO 1, the student shows an inquiring attitude, I can say that this really grew during the lab. In the beginning I was a bit overwhelmed with all the information, but I wanted to know the history of the foundation, what they wanted from me and how everything would look like. This was also part of the process of my trying to create a good vision on how I want help them and how the foundation could be innovated. This all started with reading the documents of the foundation and the report of Rob de Waard, but the conversations with the board members and involved parties helped the most. The board members where impressed of my attitude, which resulted in a really good relationship with all the members. What was funny, is that all of the board members and involved persons, have a different background in high working positions in Groningen, and hearing their stories and visions really helped me to improve my professional knowledge. The foundation is for sports, but there are so many other things that are important in order to stay a life as a foundation. Me asking questions, having meetings and showing my opinion was in this case the start of the process and the part where I could show my inquiring attitude.

As been said in the previous paragraph, is that all the persons involved have a different background and connection with sports. This makes it very valuable to work together with them, because they all have different qualities and things that I can learn from them. But also my network and connections grew immense during the first period at the foundation, mostly on LinkedIn I got in contact with all of them and made new connections. Collaborate with them is a nice experience, and I was also able to have some influence with my personal knowledge, vision and skills of which they could learn something. This mostly comes from the fact that they are all older than me so in the digital environment they are all not that strong yet. I already started with creating some ideas for them and I will start different social media pages. But in order to share the knowledge, I will create this together with one of the members so that they can take it over once it’s necessary. This is mostly related to PLO 2, the student works from co-creation.

During the process, I was able to learn a lot and to make my learning behaviour visible. As been said in the previous paragraph, I learned a lot from the persons involved in the foundation, but besides that, I learned a lot from the projects of Sport Studies and from my fellow students. What was nice during the project, is that I was able to find out which way of working suited me the best and that I was able to create my own opinion. I also learned during this project that you have to deal with setbacks. In the first few weeks of contact with the foundation, it took some time for them to set up a new meeting and to all agree on the new vision and plans of the foundation, but also on my terms and what they expected of me. I learned in this case, that it is important to share your opinion, but also when it is important to let them make decisions and wait for the right moment to ask how things are going. Because the members are all busy with their own jobs and lives, it is sometimes hard for them to make extra time free for the foundation and to find one moment that everyone is available to meet. I also learned during the project, that it is sometimes necessary to calculate some extra time for things and not to rush because you have only one change to reach the public correctly and effective. That why we calculated more time for the project and for the process in total. That’s also why in this case we mostly speak about double loop learning, because I will first identify what is necessary for the foundation, to understand the problems and needs for changes and then taking action. Later on in the process, when I will implement some stuff, we will talk also about single loop learning because then I will be making adjustments to correct a mistake or problem that popped up.

During Lab 2, I found out what the extra value of the honours community is. Since everyone is working on different projects at different companies and organisations, everyone creates a new network and knowledge. In the second community meeting, we were able to discuss our projects together, help each other out and come up with new ideas in insights for our projects. Together with Marko, I came to the idea to also look at possibilities in Drenthe and top talents who maybe live in Groningen and train in Drenthe or the other way around. But also that I can look at what the influence of international players is of the Dutch sports environment. With the work that I am doing for the foundation, I also helped Marko for one of his projects of his internship place. In this way we could help each other and share knowledge in order to grow. Helping each other is something that I like to do, and also something that I will still hope to do in the future. One example of this, is that I did a short presentation about my honours project during the introduction meeting of the upcoming new honours students from Sport Studies and Sportkunde. I showed that what you could do for honours and what my experiences were at that moment. The fact that these communities consists of people with different cultures, nationalities and hobbies, is in my opinion a real bonus for the honours community.

For PLO 5, I chose the PLO: The student is enterprising. I chose this PLO because it fits with my plans, ambitions and outcomes during the first lab and the possibilities for the second lab. The outcome of the first meetings and plans that I created for the foundation, shows that there is a future for me at this foundation and that I can really make a differences if I will keep on doing the things that I am doing at this moment. I got a job offer from them, for one day a week, at least till the end of 2022. We will look then of what we will do, and look back on how everything went etc. In the beginning it was a bigger challenges than thought to really get a contract or to reach an agreement about some terms, but because they really wanted me and because I showed what I am capable off, they putted in some effort and now we are here, at the start of the new name and restart and the future is there waiting for us!

Reflection:

Finding out what I really want, one of the main points of the first lab. Looking back on the second lab, I can say that this lab helped me to create a path for my final study year and helped me to make a decision during the period that I was in struggle of which road I wanted to take. The change that I got of improving myself in so many things at the foundation was not something I expected on forehand and I am really happy with that. The working collaboration with them isn’t finished yet and I will officially start ‘working’ for them from the 1^st of August 2022 and work for them one day a week, besides my internship at FC Groningen. This combination is something that I could never thought of at the beginning of the study year, and although this wasn’t really my plan, it is a new challenging step and I am looking forward to the next study year. In September I will go to a big congress from EASM where I can learn a lot and gain some knowledge which I can use for my honours project, my internship and everything else.