Annual Conference 2025 - Setting the Field

Grab a coffee and breakfast bites, meet your fellow delegates and make new connections.

An introduction to the day's sessions, key themes and navigating the conference app and portal.

This session will also include a welcome address from Linda Ford, the new Chief Executive of the Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland.

To keep the SGA community up to date with progress and activities, Craig Beeston will present some of the highlights from the second impact assessment report, recently delivered by Substance.

The session will consider the areas where the SGA is providing value to the sector, as well as plans for the future.

Speaker

• Craig Beeston, Sports Governance Academy

Join Alison for a behind-the-scenes look into the boardroom. In this session, using case studies from real Boards, we will explore why and how behaviour matters and how boardroom dynamics can make or break an effective Board.

Whether you're a seasoned governance expert or a newcomer, you'll leave with a sharper eye for effective boardroom behaviour and dynamics and some new tools in your toolkit to effect improvements in Board performance.

Speaker

• Alison Gill OLY, CEO and a founding director of Bvalco

In the last few years, it has been almost impossible to avoid the discourse around AI as organisations share substantive changes in their operations using the technology. With so much information and certain proponents overstating their outcomes, it can be hard to cut through the noise to understand how AI can support the sport and physical activity sector in the immediate future with the resources available and how this will benefit individual sports.

Barry Wade from Paddle UK will be introducing us to the AI work that they have undertaken. By starting with the question "What problem are you trying to solve?", Barry will walk us through how these digital solutions have come to life along with some of the AI and data governance considerations along the way. This will be followed by a short interview with Sam Green-Armytage from the SGA with plenty of time for audience questions.

Speakers

• Barry Wade - Director of Digital Innovation, Paddle UK
• Sam Green-Armytage - Operations Officer, Sports Governance Academy - Chartered Governance Institute UKI (Moderator)

With resilience being a “buzzword” in the sport sector, the meaning of the term has started to be lost in translation, which can lead to misunderstanding.

To ensure a common and accurate language about resilience amongst organisations, in this session, Dr Sarkar will initially explore common myths and misconceptions about resilience with a view to ensuring clarity about what resilience is and is not. Based on one of these misconceptions, Dr Sarkar will subsequently explore how the environment can either facilitate or undermine resilience and how leaders in organisations can influence this. Specifically, attendees will be introduced to a 2x2 challenge-support matrix to highlight the importance of balancing both high challenge and high support to develop resilience for sustained success and wellbeing.

Lastly, with psychological safety being one of the key features of a high challenge and high support (facilitative) environment, in the final part of the session, Dr Sarkar will critically review the concept of psychological safety and will discuss some practical ideas for creating psychological safety in practice.

Speaker

• Dr Mustafa Sarkar - Associate Professor of Sport and Performance Psychology, Nottingham Trent University

We have provided plenty of time for networking and opportunities to continue discussions from the morning's sessions.

Please also use the time to visit our exhibitors.

The pursuit of sport speaks to the human condition.  All the triumphs, disasters, joy and disappointments that life can bring can be found in sport.

Sports governance enables people, whether they are elite athletes or Saturday morning heroes, to access sport, safely.  The work is intimately connected to the human dynamics at play when people take a risk, get involved and have a go at sport.

In this active and engaging session, Noo Jones will focus on these human dynamics.  She will suggest that leading with humanity will help subject-matter experts thrive in a digital age. 

There are some things computers cannot do.  Amongst those them are strategic-thinking, empathy and creativity.  Happily, these are the very things that bring expertise to life.

The opportunity to deploy human skills to create a competitive advantage is clear.  But steady on!  Developing super sophisticated human skills involves shifting mindsets and behaviour.   This is where clever people tend to make Mary Poppins’ “piecrust promises” – easily made and easily broken.  Human dynamics are at play here too. Harnessing reason and emotion helps expertise come to life.  It is your competitive edge.

Speakers

• Noo Jones - Founder & Business Psychologist, Athena Professional

The SGA Awards are back for 2025. We want to celebrate the fantastic work being done in sports governance and showcase the dedication, talent and achievements of the SGA community.

We will invite nominations for three categories later this summer:

• Outstanding Governance Contribution
• One to Watch
• Sports Governance Project of the Year

Find out more about the categories and former winners here.

The Clean Water Sports Alliance represents hundreds of thousands members, athletes, and water users who are impacted by poor water quality and pollution. The group aims to align the interests of water-based NGBs to tackle water pollution and promote clean water initiatives across the UK.

In this session, we explore the panellists' experiences from the group's inception to the present day and how sporting organisations can advocate and lobby effectively for change that benefits sport and wider society.

Speakers

• Philip Brownlie - Senior Head of Public Affairs, Swim England
• Greg Spencer - Non-Executive Director, Paddle UK | Governance Manager, UK Deaf Sport
• Siobhan Thomas - Secretary, Great Britain Outrigger
• Sam Green-Armytage - Operations Officer, Sports Governance Academy

Regular and timely evaluation of performance is critical to the optimal running of an organisation. Boards should regularly review their effectiveness, the skills and experience on which they can draw and the organisation's wider governance arrangements. An external board performance review objectively highlights strengths and weakness and assesses the capacity to deliver the long-term objectives of the organisation. 

In this session, we explore the panellists' experiences of undertaking an externally facilitated review, how the processes were handled, and the pitfalls and benefits they brought to light.

Speakers

• Peter Swabey FCG - Director of Policy & Research, The Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland
• Rob Tate - Head of Governance, Planning, and Risk, ParalympicsGB
• Mark Gannon - CEO, UK Coaching
• Jackie Bryson - Director, Jackie Bryson Solutions Ltd