Let's Get Out There

A webinar on Microsoft Teams is hosted and facilitated by Carolyn Axtell, who is joined by guests Kate Dale, Rakhee Shah, Scott Radcliffe, Naseem Ahktar and Carol Burrell.

Carolyn: “Welcome everybody to the Sport England This Girl Can webinar, launching the Let's Get Out There toolkit. Thanks for joining us today, we've got some really interesting case studies that we're going to be looking at.

“We're here today to basically celebrate the amazing work that's being done by a range of different providers in enabling women to overcome barriers that they face to getting active outside, so we want to celebrate their work and we also want to launch this campaign with this brilliant new guide, which is there to enable different providers to support women to make their outdoor activities more inclusive for women of a range of, you know, basically from all backgrounds.

“So my name is Carolyn Axtell, I'm the founder of JoyRiders, which is a community interest company that supports women from a range of different backgrounds, introducing them to cycling, and works across different areas of London. And I'm also a trustee for Cycle Sisters, which is a Muslim women's cycling charity which has done fantastic work to get women from Muslim communities and also other communities into cycling. So I've been working in this space for some time and I'm really excited to see the way that things have developed over the last few years and how much focus there is now on inclusion in the outdoors and particularly making things more accessible for women.

“So I want to welcome all of our participants today: we have Kate Dale, who's the director of marketing for Sport England; we have Scott Radcliffe, who's the senior manager for partnerships at Sport England; Rakhee Shah, who's the strategic communications director for Multicultural Marketing Consultancy, who produced the toolkit working with Sport England; we have Naseem Akhtar, who's the founder and CEO of Saheli Hub in Birmingham; we also have Carol Burrell who I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly, Carol. She leads the Swim Sista Swim programme for the Canal & River Trust.

“I just want to remind everybody that the session is being recorded for future use and it'll be published on social media and possibly other platforms. Obviously if you want to ask questions then you can type those into the Q&A function; they'll be read by the moderator but please do bear in mind that the anonymous function won't be in use so only ask questions if you're happy for your name to be read out.

“So first of all we're going to hear from Kate Dale and Kate is going to tell us a bit more about the toolkit and Rakhee is also going to join us to tell us a bit more. We’ve got everybody up on screen, okay fantastic. Kate, can you tell us about your role on This Girl Can and a bit about how the Let's Get Out There campaign was developed?”

Kate: “Yeah, absolutely, thank you and hello everybody, really lovely to be here today. So I've been involved with This Girl Can since the very beginning, when it was just us looking at the data and really seeing the gender gap in participation between men and women getting active and how big and sustained that was.

“And we developed what became This Girl Can because we knew we needed to do something different. More of the same gets the same results and This Girl Can at its heart is about helping women overcome the barriers that stop them feeling able to take part. Some of those might be personal to us: how we think and feel about sport and physical activity, our experiences at school. Some of it might be - and I think we've learned this over the last 10 years; we launched in January 2015, so we're nearly 10 years old - that there's lots of emotions and feelings that women might feel themselves that we talk to directly but there are also some systemic and cultural ones where women can feel... not just feel, actually, but be practically excluded from physical activity. And so the campaign has evolved to really focus much more on that as well and I think that's where Let's Get Out There came from.

“We recognise, you know, we have so many wonderful outdoor spaces wherever we live in this country, whether we're in the middle of rural places, in urban settings, there's access to so much outdoor space, which is a fantastic place to go and get active, very often for free, so you don't have to have expensive gym memberships and subscriptions and things. There's stuff on our doorsteps very often yet lots of women feel that it's not really open or accessible or welcoming or suitable for women. And I use this phrase deliberately: 'like them'.

“So Let's Get Out There came out of us recognising that for women who maybe don't feel at home there or don't feel it's welcoming that we need to represent them much more, we need to be showing women like them getting active in those spaces and we need to be recognising the many incredible organisations - some here today - who are just saying "you know what, we're going to do it ourselves". That's what I love about women: they're just getting out there and doing it themselves and are really opening up those spaces so we wanted to really celebrate that, amplify that and take the learnings from that and really help it so that more women, every woman - no woman should feel left behind by this; we should all feel able to get out there and that's where Let's Get Out There came from.”

Carolyn: “That's fantastic - it's good to hear that, Kate. Can you tell us how important it is for Sport England and This Girl Can to reach women from all backgrounds and also how Sport England and This Girl Can can support the outdoor sector in embracing those changes?”

Kate: “Absolutely, I mean everyone has a right to feel and be active and I know from my own personal experience, I hated sport at school. I was rubbish at it, I'm still not very good at it but I know that when I'm physically active I'm calmer, I'm happier, life is just better. And yes, it's the long-term physical and mental health benefits that we all know, but the felt benefits right here, right now are just enormous.

“It doesn't mean I always do it, I have to say - I fall in and out of it because it can be hard, so that's why so that's why I personally, I think - as well as it being Sport England's job to make sure that we are tackling inequalities, that we're making sure that everyone is able to be active - it's a real personal passion project of mine to make sure that those of us who never felt able to connect are able to do it. So it is incredibly important that we don't just focus on communicating and reaching the women through This Girl Can or anyone from Sport England's work who are maybe on the edge of getting active and maybe need a bit of nudge, but that we’re going after (that sounds a bit creepy) but that we’re really trying to encourage everyone, no matter how far away you are from physical activity, that we're really helping you find your way into it.

“So that's sort of the starting point for this. I think Let's Get Out There, I really reflected actually when we first started talking about this. I grew up in Cumbria with parents who dragged me out onto the fells and onto the mountains every other weekend, whether I liked it or not - normally moaning as a teenager. But then once I was out there I loved it and that was such a privilege - where I lived, where I grew up, parents who did that, who made it just completely part of our lives to be normal - and so for me that's a really normal thing to do and I think through the work we've done with Let's Get Out There, by actually doing less of what I'm doing now in talking and more actually listening to women, realising not everyone has that normality, not everyone has that background, not everyone has that experience. So actually finding ways of normalising for women who maybe it's not part of their background, not part of their experience, is really, really important. Carolyn, I think I've lost sight of the original question here - I don't know if I'm answering it or not.”

Carolyn: “It was - everything you're saying really resonates, really interesting, but what I was asking was how Sport England and This Girl Can can support the outdoor sector to embrace those changes, in terms of, you know, reaching women from all backgrounds.” 

Kate: “Thank you, sorry. So this does connect, so right: you don't know what you don't know, so I think for the outdoor sector, which is traditionally, I think, focused on - as sports marketing has, very traditionally, on a sort of one-size-fits-all approach - the images that we see, the type of women we see represented traditionally, the clothing and all the rest of it, I think has not always been as inclusive as it could have been. And I think the outdoor industry is trying to change this. So I think one thing that we can do, and what we're doing a lot with the toolkit and with the case studies that we're sharing, is by listening to women say "well, for me, this is what I need to help me get out there and get active", whether that's prayer spaces, whether that's representation, whether that's making it clear that different types of clothing are fine and showing how that can be represented in the outdoor space as well.

“And I think from Sport England's point of view it's very often, in a way, us getting out of the way really so that women are actually talking about what they need directly themselves rather than it coming through us, through our filters and our assumptions as well. But then amplifying that and making that really practical and useful because I don't think there's anyone in our space who isn't as evangelical about this as I'm being about it now. We all want to, I think sometimes we don't always help because we're too busy telling people what to do rather than saying "why don't you tell me what you need from us so that you can actually do this" and I think that's what we're trying to do with the outdoor industry.”

Carolyn: “Right, so it's really about more listening. Yeah, I think like you say it's so important: we don't know what we don't know and ultimately it's a matter of social justice, isn't it: everybody should have the opportunity to participate so we need to find out how we can remove all those barriers. Okay, that's great, so it'd be great to hear a bit from Rakhee now. If you can tell us, Rakhee, a bit about Multicultural Marketing Consultancy and what your role has been in the Let's Get Out There campaign. I think you're on mute, Rakhee.”

Rakhee: “I was, sorry - it's that classic thing. So, of course, Multicultural Marketing Consultancy, we're an agency with a sole mission to help organisations connect effectively with multicultural communities and within this we have a kind of a guiding principle that everything we do should improve lives. We've been led under the steerage of the brilliant Patricia McCauley for the last 10 years and we work across multiple cause and issues areas, and in terms of our involvement in the toolkit, it's been a really exciting, wonderful project to be part of.

“We've actually been partnering with Sport England into the development of the culturally intelligent aspects of the two toolkits. So there's Let's Get Out There, which is a guide to making outdoor activities more inclusive for women, and I know Scott's going to talk a little bit more about both the toolkit and then the Cultural Guidance and Understanding aspect helps the sector to better understand women from diverse cultural backgrounds within the community from a cultural and faith perspective.”

Carolyn: “Okay, that's great, thank you, and I have to say the toolkit looks absolutely, I think it looks really fantastic. I was saying earlier that there's a real sense of joy from all the wonderful images in there and I think it's going to be a really useful resource for people. Can you tell us a bit about some of the barriers that you've identified that influence women's engagement with outdoor activities?”

Rakhee: “Yeah, so definitely, I can. I think some of this comes down to what you and Kate were talking about earlier in terms of really sort of looking at the situation and really kind of hearing women and, you know, listening to what it is that they require and what they need to kind of get out there. I think the commonality of success stories was that delivery partners have really taken the time to get to know their women but really put them at the centre of the work that they're doing.

“So thinking about what walks of life they're from, how the cost of living has affected their day-to-day, what responsibilities they've got, you know, what's their daily routine like. And then within this, the cultural and religious practices that will be important within their daily lives and then within all of this it's like, okay, well, look at that woman, look at these people holistically, look at these women holistically, and then what are their drivers, what are their barriers then to outdoor activity within all of this. And so I think rather than barriers per se, there's a real opportunity to sort of really get to know our women and to look at the world from their lens.  

“One of the things I think that we've definitely seen come up time and time again is - again, Kate kind of mentioned this when she was talking earlier about the sort of the lack of representation in some outdoor activities - so Rhiane Fatinikun, the founder of Black Girls Hike, she's talked extensively about this within her motivations to start the organisation. I think there's a really nice quote that I've picked up that I'd just like to read out. She talks about the fact that the lack of representation in hiking is clear for us all to see - it's never something that I associated with black people, it's not even marketed at black people. Historically dominated by white middle-class males. I just wasn't keen on the prospect of venturing out alone or joining a typical hikers' group, where there'd be no-one I could identify with.

“So I think here it's just really getting into the headspace of someone that doesn't feel represented, that doesn't feel welcome, and then we can start to think about why they might self-exclude and then what we want to do to sort of change the situation. I think another thing that - I won't kind of go on - but another thing that really came up was the, kind of, the lack of female-only offerings as well, and certainly not only from Asian Muslim women, which you might kind of expect, but from actually women across the board. Something that really kind of resonated.”

Carolyn: “Yeah, that's really interesting, isn't it. I mean, I found the same thing doing surveys in the past to identify barriers around access to cycling and I'd put a question about clothing in there anticipating that might be an issue for Muslim women, but loads of women basically felt that you know you need special clothes to cycle and had identified that it was was a barrier for them. Just before we move on to the overview of the toolkit, if we've got time it'd be good to hear any tips that you've got for how activity providers can promote their activities to a culturally diverse audience.”

Rakhee: “Yeah, absolutely. There's a whole section in the toolkit about communicating activities and I think that central thing to think about, as with the kind of the development of the activity itself, is to kind of put the women you're trying to reach at the centre of your approach. So what channels are they consuming, what's their English proficiency, what kind of grassroots community organisations are they affiliated with. And then once you've kind of thought about the women within this ecosystem, I think it becomes a lot easier to then think about that kind of approach.

“I think some of the key things to kind of consider are: think about your timing, so be aware of those key festival dates and plan your approach accordingly. You know, we wouldn't typically launch an activity campaign during the Christmas holiday; similarly for other reasons you wouldn't typically kind of launch an outdoor kind of activity campaign during Ramadan.

“Although there are nuances within all of this and that's why it's really kind of important to kind of put your woman at the centre of things. I mentioned Ramadan and the nuances there because, you know, we heard from walking groups and actually Muslim women talking about the fact that they use the walking as a kind of a way for reflection during Ramadan, so I think it's just don't kind of tar everything with the same brush. Think about the nuances of your women, showcase 'stories like me' - you know, it's really inspirational to hear about the other women from similar walks of life that have taken activities on. And think about your channels as well, and there's lots in the toolkit about kind of thinking about the right channels to reach your women.” 

Carolyn: “Excellent, yeah, that's a really good one because, you know, I found in my experience that lots of women don't use Facebook, mainly use WhatsApp, some people don't even use email, so yeah, it's really important to make sure that you're getting people through the right methods. That's great, so we've heard a lot about really listening, hearing from people, engaging with them. We're going to now move over to Scott Radcliffe, who's the senior partnerships manager at Sport England, and he's going to introduce the toolkit and talk us through it a little bit.” 

Scott: “Thank you, Rakhee. Thanks very much, Carolyn, great to be here and hi everyone. So the guides are now available to download from the Let's Get Out there page on the TGC campaign hub. We'll be sharing a link in the Q&A just after my session and if you follow that link, this is what you should hopefully see. It'll take you straight to the guides section on the campaign hub page; if not, if you can go to the next slide please, so if you struggle with that link then the simplest way to get there is just go to the resources section of the This Girl Can campaign hub and navigate your way to the Let's Get Out There page, which you see here, and the links to the guides are included on this page. So if you can go back to the original slide please, that would be super.

“So the guides, there's actually three sections to the guides. So the main guide, which Rakhee has already spoken about a little bit, and looks at the common barriers to activity, how to overcome these, how to engage with your audience and communities, and once your group or activity is set up, how best to go about communicating it, and what you need to consider as part of that process. That's the sort of main guide. There's also a cultural guidance and understanding section, which will provide you with some top-line demographic information on understanding different communities, how big the audience is, where the majority live in the UK, languages spoken and religious holidays they celebrate.  

“And all this is meant to help your understanding  and to help you with your planning. And both of these are currently available to download in PDF format, accessible PDFs from the campaign hub, as mentioned. We'll also be bringing out a social media guide with a little bit more detail on social media platforms and tips and advice on how to get the best out of them. And then if we could go to the last slide please, Jo. Fantastic. And then as part of the campaign there are also a number of other campaign resources available to you, including imagery, static and animated social assets, and an editable poster and social asset as part of the main toolkit, and these are all available to download for free as part of the campaign on the Let's Get Out There page on the campaign hub.

“A huge thanks firstly to MMC for putting the guide together, being so valuable, and then the support of Forestry England, Canal and River Trust, and Ordnance Survey for bringing the campaign together. But also we really couldn't have done this without the input of the various organisations and groups who we highlight as case studies throughout the guide, who provide so much advice and lived experience that we can all learn from. And these include Cycle Sisters, which Carolyn is a trustee of, but also Saheli Hub and Canal and River Trust, and the Swim Sista Swim programme, which I'm looking forward to hearing more about. So I'm going to hand back to Carolyn now to chat to them both.”

Carolyn: “Lovely, thank you, Scott - that's great. So I'm sure lots of people will be going on to download the toolkit and make use of it if they haven't already. So now we're going to hear from two different organisations: a regional community organisation and a larger national organisation, who are both doing a great job of engaging women from diverse communities, so we can hear their different experiences and their top tips and obviously we'll have a Q&A afterwards so we can delve a bit deeper into those sort of implementation strategies. So first we're going to hear from Naseem, who's the founder and CEO of Saheli Hub, which I've had the pleasure of visiting and starting a bike ride from when I was on a visit to Birmingham once, so I know the area a bit where Saheli is based. It would be great to hear a bit, Naseem, about Saheli Hub and when and why it was founded.”

Naseem: “Okay, good afternoon, everyone - thank you for the opportunity. So I kind of, a little bit of a back story, so I grew up in a family of boys and I love sport. I did everything the boys did and when I got to about nine I was kind of told "you're a girl now – you need to behave like a girl and you shouldn't be out playing football, skating” etc. So I was kind of really disappointed and I grew up in an area of kind of high deprivation but I never felt deprived because I was the only daughter, so I never felt any of the hand-me-downs or the whatevers because I was the only girl - no-one's going to hand down to me.

“And so we had the biggest sports centre on the edge of my neighbourhood, which nobody went to - never mind the women, the men did not go either - and so when I got to secondary school I thought I'd meet my tribe with girls who'd be wanting to do what I want to do, which is running, cycling, all that sort of stuff. And I got to a girls' school and most of the girls who were English discovered boys and the Asian girls discovered make-up and there was nobody who wanted to do sport and physical activity, to be honest, and I was kind of one of the lone people with a few people.

“So I thought life would change for the next generation, you know, and when the next generation [came and] I got to about almost 28, I had two children by that time but I still saw girls who'd go home and go to school and then go to school and go home and there was nothing beyond for them. And so then I was lucky enough to be engaged in a local neighbourhood forum who wanted to have women's views on safety and cameras that were new in the area and I started to go to this kind of woman's meeting and then from there I started to get really active. And long story short, they offered me a job and I managed to - I didn't have a real education when I was young because girls were supposed to get married and that'd be it, life would be over, and so I'd left school without qualifications being the first girl in education.  

“So there's always been, throughout my life there's been this fear of always almost getting there but never enough and so when I got to about 30 and I got this job, I thought 'well, things really have to change for girls' so I had a consultation done and 256 local women took part in a study where they said they wanted to do swimming, exercise, fitness and sport and so the first thing I did was I went to the head of the NHS and said: "Ooh, you're always saying about ethnic minority women and their views and I've got 256 local women - they want to do exercise, fitness, sport." And I remember the head of NHS at that time said to me: "But we don't do fitness - we do health. You need to go and see the city council - they do leisure. 

“So I went to the city council and the head of sport and I said: "I'd like to do exercise, fitness and sport. You always want to hear women's voices - here's a study, 256 women want this, could you help me? We've got the biggest sports centre on the edge of my neighbourhood - could we start like with the morning and then an afternoon and maybe if I do really well and I get the numbers in, could you give me like a whole day for women only?" And his view was: "Asian women doing  sport all day? That's never going to happen." And I remember I just kind of got up and I left and I just never went back because I realised it wasn't about women's voices: it's about whether they wanted to hear what women wanted to say, and whether they listened and understood what we needed.

“So it was almost like a presumption and when I do presentations I always talk about - there's this kind of generational hand-me-down excuses of communities, whether you're white, working-class poor, Asian Muslim women that, you know, "Oh no, it was so hard to engage them in 1980, 40, 56". That is still the same community and yet we've been here 60, 70 years for some of us and so those excuses are just not valid anymore. So I kind of like ignored that and I decided to do my own thing and at that time I lived in an area where life expectancy was so poor in my neighbourhood - so national average is 75, city average is 73, many in my neighbourhood die - they don't get past 65, very rarely, and my dad died at 60.

“So I will say I'm a product of what's out there, the system, and so for that reason I really wanted things to change and so what I decided to do is I would just do it myself and that's what I did. And then I was lucky I did a big presentation somewhere where I basically had a go at all the city officers and all the regeneration heads and somebody listened from the lottery and Sport England and they phoned me and said: "We really want to do things differently. This time it's not about spending money and claiming it back," because I had no money anyway as an organisation, small. "But what we really want to do is buy into a vision." And I said: "Well, I'd like to have a health and fitness facility run by women for women and this is what my study said."

“And during that time I'd set up the first-ever Asian girls club and I took them, you know, rock climbing, skiing, canoeing, I asked them what they wanted to do and they said jewellery-making, and they wanted to do things like, you know, pottery and I was just like "well, you're going to have to go to skiing and canoeing and cycling and then in six months' time I'll ask you what you want - you tell me". And I did and six months later they said they wanted to do speed boating, horse riding, they wanted to go to Wales, they wanted to do quad biking, and that's what I did and it just really grew from there.”

Carolyn: “So do you feel that you basically gave them the opportunity to expand their horizons so they could just start seeing that there were different possibilities?”

Naseem: “Yeah, because if you live in a neighbourhood where you're, in a way, services and everybody ignores you, you're always inward-looking - you don't see because that's not for you. So what I think with the kind of activities I did, it allowed them to think "well, the things I see on TV I can do now", so that's where it really grows. So their aspiration, I kind of say, the more you do this, the more they see what's around them and the more they're willing to take up that opportunity. And then obviously the opportunity has to be in the right way, which for me it was women-only stuff.”

Carolyn: “I think one of the key questions that providers might be interested to know the answer to is - which I've also found in my experience with JoyRiders and Cycle Sisters - when we're embedded in these grassroots communities, we've already got the contacts, we've got the networks, we can introduce women, we can get them started and support them. But how can larger organisations, how can they basically engage women from different backgrounds and reach into those so-called hard-to-reach communities when they're sort of like, you know, more larger or more corporate and they may not have the those kind of grassroots community contacts?”

Naseem: “Okay, so now you need to buckle up because I'm just going to be my challenging self. Well actually it's not for them to do, is it? And that's the issue - it's not for them to colonise funding in areas and communities, it's not for them to come and deliver to our community, it's none of those things. It's really about recognising there are organisations already out there that are delivering kind of community culturally appropriate - it's about how do you partner, how do you support and develop and grow organisations like us. And we still see a lot of, you know, organisations that suddenly want to, they'll get the money in, they'll send me an email - "Hi, Naseem, I've just seen your organisation, I'd love to work with you. We need to get communities from your area, women to do the..."  

“So, in the old days, because I didn't have money, I would then say "okay, as long as the girls get something". Now, I'm very blatantly honest and I just say "no, you should have spoken to me before you got the money. You're not based in this area, this community, you shouldn't be accessing money that is not for your community and your area. I don't need your well-to-do, middle-class people telling my community how to do things and when the money runs out, they're off. Actually what I need is sustainable ways of working, I need you to stop imposing models on my communities that don't work and what I actually need you to do is say “how do we develop and support you”, because then I can develop and support women from my own community who will be here when the money's gone". They will still deliver activities and sessions but more importantly they're role models for this area, this community. So then, people can just say "oh, I know who that is".

“I'll give you a quick example: I remember cycling down with a group of 15 girls and the first thing that happened, there was two elderly Asian men walking - one was local and one must have been from, I don't know where. And then as we rolled past making noise the first man went: "Look at that, oh my God, have you seen that? Those women!" And the other man just was like "oh, they're out there doing silly things", in his opinion, or frivolous things, however you want to see it, and then the other guy - it was totally alien to him because he'd probably never seen one girl cycling, never mind a gang of 15, so to speak, going down the road.

“So really it's about, you know, and I always say for most people they talk about "if I can't see it, I can't be it" - I would say for me, it's not that - for me it's "if I can't show it, I can't grow it" and the reason for that is because for me, I can do anything you want me to do. I can do triathlons with women. I've got triathlons which - it's not 'triathlon', it's 'tryathon' - capital TRY-athon. And so what I do is I do it at three levels...”

Carolyn: “Thank you, Naseem. Okay, so just so we don't run out of time, to bring Carol in because we'll have opportunity to hear a bit more from you on the panel. That's great, that's given us a real sense of where you're coming from, the vision behind Saheli and all the amazing work you've been doing over the past 23 years. So we'll come back to hear a bit more from you when we get to the Q&A and also the panel discussion. But I'd like to bring in Carol now from the Canal and River Trust to hear a bit more about Swim Sista Swim and when and why it was founded.”

Carol: “Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for inviting me along - it's been great. So Swim Sista Swim, we started to develop, we started the programme in April but we were developing it from way before. So I started as a community well-being coordinator with the Canal and River Trust in May 2021. And I was delivering a pilot of green social prescribing. We were one of seven areas that were picked in the whole country. And it was great - we were doing all these activities near waterways, paddling, walks, cycling, all different kinds of things.

“What I did notice was that African-Caribbean people, in particular black women, were not accessing the programme and this is my community. And so when I reached out and I was asking people and asking the community "why are you not accessing this fully funded programme to gain the benefits of being on or near the waterways?", I was overwhelmed with "I'm afraid of the water, I can't swim, the water's not for me, that water's too deep". It was coming thick and fast from everywhere so from then I had a chat with my manager, who got it - she understood. And she says "we've got to change this - we've got to do something about it". So it's from about October, November it's been there, you know, yes, we need to change.”

Carolyn: “Okay, that's brilliant. So you've told us about some of those key barriers that women face around swimming, and how have you addressed that with the work at Swim Sista Swim and what sort of success have you had?”

Carol: “Okay, so a lot of the barriers - well, some of the barriers - are, you know, constantly being told that our bones are heavy so we can't float, we can't swim, and when that's constantly said to you, you take it on board.”

Carolyn: “Sorry, can you say that again, Carol?”

Carol: “We've been constantly told that black people's bones are heavier and we can't float and we can't swim. It's a myth but it's been going around for years - well, all of my life that's what I've heard. But when something's constantly fed to you then take it on board. So there's that - also not having...”

Carolyn: “So are you saying that women believe because they'd been told that so much they actually believed that, that would prevent them, that this is true?”

Carol: “Well, when you're constantly told it - and I mean constantly - you do take it on board. I'm not saying that everyone does but you do take it on board. So this meant that people wouldn't try to float. Having the swim caps that didn't fit our hair was a huge barrier and then just being told that black people don't swim. Again, it is a myth but being constantly told that - and that all makes barriers for people that, you know, you need to learn to swim.”

Carolyn: “So can you tell us a bit about the partnership with Soul Cap and what the response has been from the women that have used their swimming caps?”

Carol: “Yeah, Soul Cap have been amazing. So I reached out to them when, you know, we decided we were going to go ahead with this and explained what the programme was about and they immediately were invested. They said it's again something that they want to change the narrative on and they've - Soul Cap are London-based and they've created these swim caps that fit our hair so what they kindly did was donated some swim caps to us, which meant that every woman that came on to the programme, we were able to give them a swim cap so they could cover the hair and get involved with the swim programme. So yeah, they've been amazing. They came up to visit us when they heard about the programme that we're doing and every bit that's involved in it. They really love the programme, want to support it.”

Carolyn: “We've had support from them with the Try Sisters programme at Cycle Sisters as well and similar partnerships with, like, Lyra Modest around modest swimwear, for example, and it's really great being able to sort of partner with and get support from those brands. I was wondering how important do you think it is that you've got those contacts - you're embedded in the African-Caribbean community where you identified this under-representation, so how important do you think that has been to the women that you've engaged?”

Carol: “It's been the most important thing. Quite a few of the women coming through I've known them over the years because the age range we've got, we kind of concentrate on 35 to 70 but I have got some that are younger and some that are older. So I have seen a lot of the people over the years and I've always been in involved in community engagement so I will always bring my community into the programmes that are happening. So it's really important to have somebody that's from the community and understands the community and has those connections within the community and outside of the community. So yeah, it's really helped having me deliver it.”

Carolyn: “Thank you, yeah - you're the bridge, aren't you? Okay, that's great - I've just got one last question before we move on to, sort of, closing remarks for this section, which is whether you've got any thoughts on the wider outdoors and exercise community about what they can do to help women from different backgrounds basically get active and feel included.”

Carol: “Absolutely. You need to go into the community - don't expect them to come to you. Go into the community to introduce what this programme is that you want to deliver. Hear what the community is saying - so don't assume you know it all and you're going to tell them what's happening. You need to listen to what prevents them from being involved or what they'd like to see and then just constantly give information because knowledge is power, so then they know what's intended of them, what the programme will... what you'll deliver on the programme. Being open and honest with them and much more would take this on board and that's what I found.”  

Carolyn: “Okay, that's great - thank you. Okay, I think we can then move to the Q&A section now because I'm sure we got some good questions that people want to ask and some more reflections on the toolkit. Yeah, it'd be really good to hear what kind of things people would like to know. Sorry, I've just lost my screen for a moment. I mean I've had lots of thoughts - there's lots of things that resonate with me. What you've talked about, Naseem, and what you've talked about, Carol - very similar process with JoyRiders and Cycle Sisters of asking women what the barriers are that they face and with cycling it was things like never having cycled, never having had the opportunity to cycle, never having had access to a bike. And with swimming, since we started expanding Cycle Sisters into a sort of Try Sisters initiative whenever we have cycling lessons available, like women-only cycling lessons where we've partnered with a few different councils, they get booked up, you know, within an hour, especially when we've had support on open water swimming. We've done a couple of those sessions and they literally, you know, you just can't get a space, so I think it just shows how huge the demand is. Okay, so we've got a question for you, Carol, about the Swim Sista Swim programme that's just popped up on my screen. I'm just trying to find - whoops, sorry, I've just shrunk you all. Let me just find the question... so how does the Swim Sista Swim programme work and is it based in leisure centres?”

Carol: “So our programme Swim Sista Swim, we're based in a leisure centre which is in within a local community. It's in the Meadows area of Nottingham, which used to be a city leisure centre but it's not - they bought it and it's theirs. And how it works is it's delivered for 10 weeks because it had to be a good chunk of time that we delivered it for. We have 45 minutes or an hour of the swim but then we have information-giving sessions afterwards so it's not just swim and go - we have workshops.

“So one of the workshops we bought, one of my colleagues came in and he delivered water safety. I had another colleague coming in who delivered volunteering. We had a psychotherapist that worked with us from the very beginning, all the way through to look at the barriers and challenge the barriers, and we also had a salon owner and hair stylist coming and talk to the women about looking after your hair once you've been in the water and the chlorine gets in your hair. And can I just say it's not that we don't know how to look after our hair - it's because the caps didn't fit so when the water got to your hair and the chlorine got to your hair, it was about that process, so I just needed to put that out there because we do know how to look after our hair! But it was, you know, this is just an added thing to it.”

Carolyn: “So did it make a massive difference then to people's experience?”

Carol: “Having the swim caps? Absolutely, because growing up, like I said, we didn't have swim caps that fit so you were reluctant to go into the water because you were constantly told that your hair would cut off - and there are some cases, I do know some people where did your hair would break off if you got the chlorine into your water. So having that protection of a cap that fits you made a whole heap of difference to people so it was just - and it was about sharing the experience, so when we had the first information-giving session, when the 20, 25, 30 women were talking about their experiences and other women were realising 'yeah, that's right', it just supported each other and encouraged people to continue going.”

Carolyn: “It's interesting because I noticed that the reservoir in Hackney where I sometimes go swimming, they have the larger caps available and I don't know if those are, you know, that's something that every leisure centre, every swimming pool in the country could, you know, could make accessible. It's a really small fix, isn't it? Okay, so we've got a few more questions coming in. We've got one for Kate, which is about the Make Space for Girls programme and whether there's... that's a connection, that's an organisation to do with parks. Is there a connection between the Let's Get Out There and the Make Space for Girls campaign?”

Kate: “We work with Make Space for Girls and we've been working with them particularly around another project we do called Lift The Curfew, which is around designing for women and girls and tackling harassment, intimidation and things like that. So yeah, absolutely, I think the more we can connect the different organisations and all of you who are doing so much in this space, the better and I think one of the amazing things that Make Space for Girls does is really get us thinking, and get anyone who's involved with planning spaces and how they are assigned and created and shared, to actually put girls' needs first and see it through their eyes. Because so much of this comes back to just seeing it through the eyes of the people you're trying to reach and understanding from their perspective rather than doing it at them that it's really important. So don't think we're working directly with them - Scott will be able to correct me on this if I'm wrong - on Let's Get Out There but they're certainly part of the, sort of, the people we're talking to about all the work that we're doing with This Girl Can.”

Carolyn: “That's great because we know that, you know, safety is a big issue obviously; I mean, I saw men out jogging last night when I was cycling home in the dark, you know, but don't often see women out jogging after dark. And with a lot of the rides that we've done along the River Lee, you know, a lot of people told us the barrier was that because we found that people weren't accessing the Lee Valley even though it was right on their doorstep. Many people had actually grown up, you know, really just a mile from this beautiful resource but many people didn't know it was there, had just never been there, you know, when they were growing up. Or if they did know about it, they just didn't feel safe and say "once I get to that bridge, you know, I don't want to go any further". But they become more confident once they've accessed it with a group and then they can start. You know, now you see a lot more diversity in terms of that space being used all along the Lee Valley by, you know, a much wider variety of people.”

Kate: “And then we all help each other, don't we, because the more of us are there, the safer it feels, so if we can get some of us there in a group and, as you said, you get the... it starts to feel like somewhere where you can go and belong, which is not to take away from safety concerns or to ignore those, but some of that is around perception and how it feels. But there are also practical things that we can be doing but absolutely by encouraging more of us into those spaces and greater diversity into those spaces, it makes it feel safer for everyone.”  

Carolyn: “Yeah, absolutely, because sometimes people talk about perceptions of barriers and I think 'no, these are real barriers'. Like, there is a lot of crime especially in the summertime near the River Lee, lots of people do get mugged for their bikes and, you know, all the rest of it. So it's not just a perception, no, absolutely. I've got a question for Rakhee, which is about whether you can advise us, Rakhee, on the best way to set up community consultation sessions.”

Rakhee: “Yeah, absolutely. It's a really good question. Just to flag that there is a quite detailed section in the toolkit around community engagement and so a lot of what I'm going to talk about here is around that kind of community engagement piece. So I think if you don't have inroads into the community that you're hoping to reach for, you know, for whatever reason, I think a really good way to, kind of, to get those inroads, to form those inroads and just to sort of start to get those insight to work to form local relationships with local community organisations, local faith group groups - so just talking about, like, you know, local women's groups, for example, lots of mosques, for example, will have kind of a women's network attached to the mosque and lots of community organisations, if you kind of look at the kind of offering in your area, have a look on their websites and you'll see that they're actually already really interested in kind of outdoor activities or physical exercise. 

“You know, kind of getting their members out there might not be specific to outdoors but certainly around, you know, the benefit of physical activity, so I think the first step is about sort of making a list of those organisations and making contact with them just to explain what it is that you're hoping to do. I think a really good way to do this is if you've got someone from a similar cultural background that can help you lead this communication. I think that's really nice; if not, that's fine as well and you can also co-lead the kind of efforts as well. I think a face-to-face meeting in the first instance is really nice - to kind of make that time to, you know, to kind of show that this is really important. I'm making the time to come and see you and in the place that you work and then I think together you can go about, kind of, working out 'okay, what are the questions' and, you know, 'what is it that we want to kind of understand'.

“And then I think it's probably about working to see if we can use their networks to try and get the, kind of, the consultation out there. So they'll have newsletters, they'll have social media outlets that, you know, that you could kind of use. You could also set up a meeting or, kind of, use a meeting that's already taking place and see if you can get a segment of that meeting for the work that you're trying to do. I think it's always quite nice to use something that's already happening rather than getting people along to something brand new, which can be quite difficult. And then I think, you know, within that, yes, use those groups but then once you've got your set of questions, once you've got what it is that you're looking to looking to get, you can then use your own networks obviously to kind of put those things out there too because you never know what you'll get from your own networks too.

“I think the one thing to think about when you're engaging communities, really kind of important point, is to consider that a lot of these groups are doing this in their own free time, you know. They've got a day job and they're doing this in the evenings, right, so they're wearing three or four different caps and they're doing multiple things and they might not be getting paid for the work that they're doing with, you know, with the women's group or, you know, with the local faith group. So think about what it is that you can offer back. Can you offer some money? Can you offer a value exchange? You know, what is it that you can do to show that, you know, you're really respecting this person's time?

“And then I think it's if you've managed to get that far, I think it's about maintaining that relationship as well. Don't just sort of use them for the consultation and then walk away because I think there's probably a really nice... if they've been interested in the consultation they're likely to be interested in continuing to work with you and that will be, you know, the way to kind of pull in your numbers and get people interested as well. So hopefully that helps with a, sort of, a starter for 10.”

Carolyn: “Yeah, that's great, Rakhee - those are all of the same things that I was thinking, you know. Pay people - at the minimum, you know, provide food. But really, you know, you're asking people to give... don't ask people to give up their time for free, you know - allocate a budget for this. It's really important to value people's time, especially if we're talking about diversity, inclusion, all of that, you know. You've really got to, you know, put your money where your mouth is, especially if you're coming from a larger organisation with a budget. I think, like you said, it’s about going to where people are - don't invest loads of time in trying to set up a new thing and get people to it. Go along, you know, find out, like you said, where the women's groups are, if you want to talk to the stay-at-home mums, you know, go down and meet them during school hours and engage with, you know, whatever they're already doing. if you've got like an ESOL class, an English conversation club or something like that that you can join with.

“I also think building relationships, like you said, is really important and I think one of the key things that I found is that people are more likely to go to something if they know somebody else who's going, you know. Anything, any sort of social situation for many people, especially women that might face, you know, additional multiple barriers, that can be quite scary. So when I was working as a cycling instructor I knew that many women - well, lots of people don't know: what does a cycling lesson entail, what am I going to be asked to do and am I going to be put outside my comfort zone? But if you're, if you, when you start to build those relationships people will tell their friends and it will spread through, you know, through the networks so I think all of the advice you've given, I would say, is really spot-on in my experience.

“We've got about another five minutes for questions before we start to close. We've got a question from an organisation based in east Bristol and, I can't see, oh sorry, it's from Sarah. She wants to set up new health and fitness groups for local women, particularly Somalian Muslim women that she works closely with already. She wants to give them training in experiences that haven't been possible before but they're not a fitness charity so they'll need to partner or work with other organisations, but they do have a community centre with a large sports hall. So she's asking what you would advise in terms of how they could proceed with that?”

Naseem: “Is that one to me?”

Carolyn: “Oh yes, sorry, no, that's to Naseem.”

Naseem: “So just to say what I would do - is it Sarah? - what I would do, Sarah, is if you don't actually have the swimming pool and the opportunity to go swimming, go and make some connections with the local centre that is as local as can be - the closer, the better - that does have a pool and what you should be able to go and do is say "I've got a group of women" because they will have numbers and quotas that they need to reach.

“So what you have is the commodity of having women who want to do something but they have the pool you want them to do it in. So I would go to them and say "look, I've got a group of women who we're working with - could we have a conversation where there's a partnership two-way?" And what you would do is deliver maybe the physical activity interventions or the social clubs and then slowly, gradually walk them, so to speak, to the leisure centre. The other thing is you might get the leisure centre to come and do a presentation. 

“But what I would say is, from what you've said, the Somalian - they would want women only so they would want women-only lifeguards, they would want women on, so maybe there's a slot and a time. So maybe the first thing to do is actually do a consultation with the women as to when they're free, what time they're free, and more importantly how far they're willing to travel, because if the answer is they're only free at 5 o'clock, which is the busiest time for the centre, there's no way you'll get a look-in. But if there's other times...”

Carolyn: “Sorry to interrupt, Naseem, it sounds like they've already got access to a venue - it's more about how to proceed given that this organisation is not a fitness charity so they need to partner with someone that can provide.”

Naseem: “And that's what I’m saying - they need to partner with the leisure centre because technically the leisure centre should have the number, should be getting women from that kind of community involved, so it's about using the information you have because then when you go to that meeting, you're already prepared to say, you know, "is it available at this time?" rather than going to have a general conversation and coming back. Do your homework first to make sure. For example, you could say "I've got a group of women - they're available on a Monday at 10 o'clock till 1 o'clock. Is there a slot we could look at?" etc etc. So it's having all the information ready first before you go to see that, have that conversation but also take someone from within that community as well so that they can, what's the word, argue their case as to why they need it.

“And strength is always in numbers so if you go in and say "I've got 30 women who want to go swimming", they're not going to really say no unless they're really silly - they're going to want those 30 women through the door. So I think it's about having that strength in numbers, having all the information you need so when you get there you're not sent back to find out more things - you actually are already prepared and have the information ready.”

Carolyn: “Yeah, that sounds good. I'm wondering as well - and that's really good advice, thank you, Naseem - I'm also wondering, Sarah, if there's a contact within the council in Bristol that somebody that has a role around promoting physical activity, getting people active, that can also, you know, it's part of their strategic objectives to reach out and get women more active.”

Naseem: “And one final thing, can I say, there might be, can I say, there might be a local charity that does do sport and fitness locally or has an ambition to set up sport and fitness. Then you might want to go and have a chat with them as well so there's almost like a three-way partnership. So do have a look because - and maybe they come to you, Sarah, because you're safe and they enjoy coming to your centre - so maybe they can start to look at becoming an organisation within their own right that you can help them with, but they're based with you. That could be the other thing.”

Carolyn: “That sounds great, you know, and hopefully that would progress to something like some of those women becoming trained, perhaps, in delivering activities themselves. I think one of the key things when it comes to swimming, you know, like my local pool, they have two slots a week for women-only swimming and there's always a queue around the block. And if you don't get down there early, you can't get in and the rest of the time it's really difficult for women to access. Because I don't know how many leisure centres have this but there are no women-only changing rooms anymore, you know, so even if you had a swimsuit that you felt comfortable in, you're basically stuck because you don't have a private space to change in afterwards, which I think is, I don't know if that's a trend towards leisure centres designing their facilities in that way. But obviously that really excludes a lot of people.

“Okay, so it's been a really inspiring session. It's been so good to hear from all of, you know, from these different organisations plus all the different organisations represented in the toolkit. We've heard some really important points there about the importance of listening to people, hearing from them first hand, what the barriers are, and Naseem made some really important points that if you're a large organisation, you know, don't go and get your funding and then go and speak to the people that you want to support, to work with, as an afterthought because you need them to get you the audiences that you're trying to reach. If you want to partner with those organisations, you need to go and talk to them at an early stage, you need to resource their time, you need to make sure that everybody's being remunerated for what they're bringing to the partnership. Yeah, I mean, I think, are there any final comments that anybody else would like to add?”  

Naseem: “I'm happy to say that there are lots of organisations that would love partnering with NGBs, love partnering with community organisations - whether you're the local authority or whoever are the providers of activities - because there's a demand and I think we've had... the reason why women queue round the block for swimming is because for 52% of the population, two hours is not enough. Surely anyone can do the maths of that.

“So I think you've got to do horses for... if you're in deepest, darkest Dorset and Devon then maybe you don't need to do women-only but if you're in the middle of Leicester, Bradford, Leeds etc, you know, London, certain communities, then recognise the communities that you're working with and if they're not coming through the door, there's a reason. It's because you've not been welcoming enough and you've not understood them, so if you want to have more participation from communities and groups and organisations that are reflective of the community you're based in then you have to understand them and more importantly start to provide.

“Because even in my community, even though the centre isn't there anymore, 20 years later it was still trying to cater for a white, working-class Irish community which was non-existent by the time I'd grown up to get to 30. So I think we really have to understand who are these centres catering for and why.”

Carolyn: “Thank you, Naseem, again you've made some really good points there. I think we've had some really useful insights. I liked what you said about, you know, if you can't show it, you can't grow it. We all know the one about if you can't see it, you can't be it. You know, a really simple thing that organisations can do is improve, you know, the imagery that they're using to make sure that it's representative of different communities but I also think it's important that you're not promising what you can't deliver so if you're showing really great diversity among sort of coaches and things and then actually when people turn up, that's not there and, you know, they're the only black person or the only woman in the room, then you've got to make sure that you can provide what you're putting through in your images.

“But I think something that comes across really well in in the toolkit is the importance of that representation, as well as all those practical tips. I think there's so much that the people are going to find in the toolkit that's going to be really useful and I think the stories that we've heard from everybody today and the insights that you shared, you know, all of those different examples are really powerful. There's been a lot of learning. 

“Yeah, it's been really good to hear of those, sort of like, different stories especially because we've had, like, a kind of national organisation like the Canal and River Trust and then your work that's, you know, developed over so many years, Naseem. I've really enjoyed it. I'm always happy to talk about, you know, barriers to physical activity, barriers that women face and how we can make things more inclusive. And like we were talking about earlier, it's ultimately a matter of social justice, enabling everybody to, you know, to have those opportunities so that we have that level playing field, so to speak. Yeah, thanks again for everybody for your time and don't forget you can also watch the recording of the webinar because that'll be sent out to everybody who registered. Thanks everyone.”

Kate: “Thanks everyone, amazing work.”

Carolyn: “Enjoy the rest of your day.”

Kate: “Bye.”