The Global Sport for Life Movement

For many years the Sport for Life Society has been working with international partners to advance the concepts of Long-Term Athlete Development, quality sport, and physical literacy around the globe. Recently, Richard Way, Sport for Life CEO, and Tom Jones, Sport for Life Director of International and Partnerships, on request from partners, visited four countries to continue this work.

Tom arrived in Turkey August 25 to do some background research and meetings for MCV Sport Academy. He visited Arkas Sport Club in Izmir to tour the club and meet with Arkas Technical Director Glenn Hoag, who, along with Tom, represented Canada in the 1984 Olympics for Volleyball and has been a champion of Long-Term Athlete Development for many years.

Tom then met with Mr. Jenks, VP of Arkas, about the role and importance of the sport club to the Arkas Company brand, which parallels the MCV Company in the development of the MCV Sport Academy. From there he toured the Tarsus American College in Tarsus Turkey, whose alumni include many prominent business and government leaders in Turkey, and met with Andy Leathwood, a Canadian who is Headmaster of the K-12 school.

On September 1 Tom arrived in Egypt and started the first in a series of meetings with key members of the MCV Sport Academy team and project leads, including those responsible for overseeing the development of both the academic and art sections of the school.  Richard joined the meetings from September 5 onward. They met on the Academy, newly named Apex Academy, marketing, leadership, personnel plan and recruitment, construction status, status of sections, vision and mission, calendar planning, high level work planning, and signing of our Phase 2 contract addendum.

From September 6 to 8, Richard and Tom toured and presented on quality sport and physical literacy to three sport clubs: Heliopolis Sport Club, Al Gezira Sport Club, and Alexandria Sport Club. While all three showed interest in the material and in future partnerships, Heliopolis expressed enthusiasm in contracting us to assess and improve Long-Term Athlete Development in the early stages at the club.

September 8 the pair flew to Bahrain to present at the International Physical Literacy Mini-Convention hosted by the Bahrain Olympic Committee. There they delivered two days of presentations and panels with Dr. Dean Dudley on a range of topics.

Tom started his trip back to Canada on September 11 while Richard headed farther east to Fiji to present at the Oceania Long-Term Athlete Development Symposium. Along with Chrys Snyder of the United States Olympic Committee, Richard led a two-day symposium to National Olympic Committees from all around Oceania on understanding how to connect Long-Term Athlete Development stages to actual program delivery from club to country, with the ultimate goal of creating an Oceania Development Framework.

Then, after two days of well-deserved rest on a small Fijian Island, Richard flew home to Victoria on September 18.