The webinar begins with a full-screen title slide showing a woman smiling while using a cross-trainer in a gym setting. The title of the webinar, ‘Research & Insights Webinar’ is shown next to her. Underneath this are the This Girl Can, Lottery Funded and Sport England logos, along with the date ‘March 2025 and time ‘11am-12pm’.
The title slide shrinks down very slightly and the webinar host, Kate Peers from Sport England, begins talking – her live video is minimised to the side of the still image.
Kate Peers says: “Hi everyone. I'm Kate Peers, Strategic Lead for Campaigns at Sport England. Thanks very much for joining us for This Girl Can's Research and Insights webinar. This follows the webinar we held last November where we introduced the strategy of this new phase for This Girl Can, ‚’Belonging Starts with Inclusion’. And we've heard from you that you would like to keep updated on campaign plans, as well as having tangible resources and insights.”
“So today we'll be taking you through our latest research that is informing this next phase of the campaign. We’ll highlight the insights on the next slide that we have gained on the motivators and the barriers that impact our women's participation in physical activity and what this may mean for all of us.”
As Kate is talking, the screen transitions to the next slide, entitled ‘Agenda’. An image of two women taking part in an exercise class in a fitness studio is shown next to a list of bullet points outlining the running order of the webinar.
Kate P continues: “And we'll also give an overview of resources that will be made available, and how together we can help create more opportunities for women.
“And we are very pleased to be joined by guest speakers from Active Wellbeing Society and Saathi House, who will share how they have worked with local organisations to create and promote on-the-ground experiences for women. And then we'll finish off with next steps. Unfortunately, we won't have time for a live Q&A today, but please do add any questions into the chat and we'll follow up with responses.”
A slide titled ‘Introductions’ appears on screen, featuring thumbnail photos of the seven contributors to the webinar: Sport England’s Kate Peers, Strategic Lead for Campaigns; Nilen Bhatt, Head of Behavioural Insight at Sport England; Steph Phillips, Strategy Director at TGC Collective; Scott Radcliffe, Business Development & Partnerships at Sport England; Kate Dale, Director of Marketing at Sport England; Tiffany Joseph, Centre Manager at Saathi House and Owner of MIU Wellness Hub; and Ammaarah Faisal, This Girl Can Community Engagement Lead in Birmingham.
Kate P continues: “First, some introductions. So joining me today are Nilen Bhatt and Steph Phillips who will be taking us through the insight. We also have Scott Radcliffe who will be covering the resources section. And Kate Dale will be interviewing our guest speakers who are already doing incredible work to support women being active. So we have Ammaarah Faisal, This Girl Can Community Engagement Lead in Birmingham, based at the Active Wellbeing Society, and Tiffany Joseph, the Centre Manager at Saathi House and proud owner of MIU Wellness Hub.”
A slide titled ‘Introduction’ appears, showing a woman jogging outdoors.
Kate P continues: “Okay, let's get started. So This Girl Can has accomplished so much over the past ten years, and none of it would have been possible without your incredible support. Across the sector, we're seeing fantastic efforts to help women and girls get active. But the reality is we're not there yet. Our latest insight has found that only 1 in 10 women on lower incomes feel they completely belong in the world of physical activity, and 1 in 6 women have felt so unwelcome in an activity setting that they have never returned to that type of activity.”
A slide titled ‘What we want to achieve’ appears, showing a smiling woman using a weights machine in a fitness gym. Kate talks through the bullet points.
Kate P continues:
“These statistics highlight the need for continued action, because no woman should feel like she doesn't belong in sport and physical activity. And so, over the next three years, This Girl Can has four overarching objectives. The first is to decrease inactivity levels, and this is about encouraging those who aren't active yet to try some form of being active. The second is to increase activity levels, and this is about encouraging women who are a little bit active just to be a bit more active.
“The third is to positively change attitudes, and we'd like to increase the number of women from all backgrounds who feel that sport and physical activity is a place for them. And then finally, to build a collaborative movement. And this is about supporting people like yourselves who create opportunities and reasons for women and girls to get active, by providing inspiration, tools and assets.”
A slide titled ‘Our women’ appears, showing two women jogging together outdoors. Kate talks through the slide text.
“And to ensure that no woman is left behind, we have taken an intersectional approach to identifying the audiences we’ll be focusing on. Using statistical methods through our inequalities metric, we have established the factors of inequality that lead to some women achieving more minutes of activity per week than others. And so this next chapter of This Girl Can is unapologetically focussed on supporting women from underrepresented backgrounds to get active. Women who face the greatest barriers to physical activity, yet have the most to gain.
“And you'll hear much more about this as we delve into the insight and what our women have told us. So while the campaign is for all women, our focus will be to engage with all women on lower incomes and who additionally are from South Asian Muslim communities, black communities, age 55 years or over, and are pregnant and/or have a child under one.
“And taking a further intersectional approach the campaign will also need to meet the needs of our disabled women, as well as our women with a long-term health condition. And we know that every woman is unique and much more than a set of characteristics. So to reflect this, we'll be describing our audience as ‚’our women’, and you'll hear that throughout.
A slide titled ‘Timeline’ appears, with a graphic of a timeline underneath showing different stages of the campaign from Q1 2025 through to Q1 2026. Kate talks it through.
Kate P says: “So before we get into the insight, just a brief reminder of our timeline for the next year. First off is ‚’Raise It’. So to kickstart the campaign and amplify the voices of our women, we launched a PR activation at the end of February to highlight the inclusion gap and the barriers women face to being included in the world of physical activity.
“And we'll continue to amplify our women’s voices throughout the campaign. And we are now in the ‚’Shape It’ phase. And this is the opportunity to bring you, our partners, on the journey with us, arming you with the insight to help you identify what actions you can take to narrow the inclusion gap. And this leads to what we're calling ’Celebrate It’.
“So in the autumn, this is when we'll be launching our consumer-facing advertising campaign, looking to engage our women, recognising the challenges they face, and to help break down the barriers that's preventing them to take that first step back into physical activity. Now, before I hand you over to Nilen and Steph to take you through the topline findings of our research, we'll play one of the assets we'll be making available to you to encourage everyone in the industry to read the ’Belonging Starts with Inclusion’ insight report. Please roll film.”
A full-screen video begins playing.
The video begins with a high-tempo, upbeat music track that continues throughout, with the This Girl Can logo in the top right of the screen.
A female voiceover says the following words: "For 10 years, This Girl Can has celebrated women getting active in whatever ways work for them."
During this sentence, we see the words ‘For 10 years’ appear on a purple background, followed by a quick transition between shots of different women getting active: kicking a boxing bag, jumping on a trampoline, swimming, practising judo, roller-skating, boxing, playing rugby and using a seated leg press in a gym.
The voiceover continues: "Together, we've helped to break down barriers, challenge stereotypes and show there's no one way to be active."
During this sentence, we see the words ‘Helped to break down barriers’ drop in from the top of the screen on a purple background, followed by a split screen of the words ‘Challenge stereotypes’ and, to the right, shots of different women running, exercising with their babies, dancing and doing warm-up squat jumps with a group on a pitch in a circle.
The voiceover continues: "But despite this progress, there is still more work to be done."
The words ‘There is still more work to be done’ slide in on the purple background.
The voiceover says: "Women remain less active than men." These words appear individually on screen.
She continues: "And for some, the world of sport and physical activity still doesn't feel like a space where they belong."
During this sentence, we see a defeated-looking woman leaning on a wall, a woman arguing with a man in a living room and an exhausted woman collapsing onto a sofa.
The voiceover says: "Our research found that only one in 10 women from lower-income backgrounds feel they completely belong in physical activity."
The words ‘One in 10 women from lower-income backgrounds feel they completely belong in physical activity’ appear on screen.
A shot of two women walking with their children in prams appears alongside the following text, which is also spoken: "And one in six have felt so unwelcome that they've never returned to that activity."
The voiceover says: "But this isn't just about the sport and physical activity sector. It's bigger than that."
The words ‘This isn’t just about our sector’ slide in and flash on a green background.
The voiceover continues: "This feeling of exclusion is shaped by a mix of economic, social and emotional barriers."
During this sentence, we see a slow-motion shot of people walking down a busy high street.
The voiceover says: "Right now, 61% of women on lower incomes are thinking about getting active."
There’s a split screen with the text ‘61% of women on lower incomes’ on the left, and shots of women dancing on the right.
The words ‘thinking about getting active’ are then overlaid across the whole screen, with the women dancing in the background.
The voiceover says: "Lots of great work is already happening across the country, but we're not there yet."
During this sentence we see shots of the Black Girls Do Run club warming up and laughing, before the words ‘But we’re not there yet’ appear over the top of a woman preparing to lift a barbell.
The voiceover says: "This is our opportunity to change the narrative and support our women."
During this, the words ‘This is our opportunity’ scroll across the screen on a purple background, followed by ‘to change the narrative and support our women’ appearing individually.
There’s a shot of a large group of women and roller-skaters dancing, embracing and clapping animatedly, with the following overlaid words that are also spoken:
"Together, we can help more women feel like they belong in the world of sport and physical activity and inspire them to be more active."
The voiceover continues: "Our insight report shows how we can all bring back joy, make women feel seen, and create a world where every woman feels welcomed. Read it to see how you can help."
During this sentence, we see a shot of the front cover of the report, entitled ‘Belonging Starts with Inclusion’ followed by pages from it with the titles ‘Methodology’, ‘About our women’, ‘Barriers’, ‘Motivations’ and ‘Conclusion and shared ambition’.
The following words appear on the screen as they’re spoken: "Because belonging starts with inclusion."
The video ends with a slate featuring the This Girl Can logo and the URL www.thisgirlcan.co.uk/startwithinclusion, as the music track comes to an abrupt end.
A new title slide appears, showing two smiling women hiking in a park setting. The title ‘Understanding our audiences: Key findings from the research” is shown next to this.
Two new speakers appear in small windows next to the title slide. They are Nilen Bhatt and Steph Phillips.
Nilen says: “Great, thanks Kate, for setting this up and sharing the video. Hello everyone. My name is Nilen Bhatt, I'm the Head of Behavioural Insight at Sport England. And I've been working on This Girl Can insight over the last four years or so and have been overseeing our phase six research. And yeah, my absolute pleasure to be here and speaking to you all today. I'll pass on to Steph.”
Steph Phillips says: “Hi. I'm Steph Phillips and I'm the Strategy Director for the This Girl Can Collective, helping to transform these insights into what will become our communications campaign.”
Nilen continues: “Thanks very much, Steph.”
A new slide appears, with the title ‘We have done a lot of research to:’ followed by a numbered list.
Nilen talks through the text: “So, yeah, Steph and I are going to be talking through the findings from the research we've been conducting with our women over the last four months or so.”
The slide becomes full-screen, while Nilen continues to provide voiceover.
Nilen says: “So just a bit of context first, so with This Girl Can’s, kind of more specific focus on our new priority audiences, we knew we needed to conduct a significant amount of research to build our knowledge and understanding of our women, so that we could be insight-led in engaging them and kind of meet their needs, in a way that we can best be served by what they require.
“So the research was quite broad and overarching, but we did have three main objectives. And they were to understand the scale and breadth of the barriers that prevent our women from getting active, unearth what will motivate our women to become more active despite these barriers, and understand what type of support and solutions our women need to get started and sustain their activity levels.
“In terms of the methodology we took, there have been four different phases of the research. We had an initial qual and quant research done by 23Red, when bidding to become our creative agency. And that's where we got the idea around Belonging Starts with Inclusion. And then we ran an online community with 26 low-income women.
“So this is a qualitative methodology for those of you who aren't familiar with it, where participants can log on to an online platform for around 30 minutes a day, and they were asked to complete a series of tasks, answer some questions. There are opportunities to speak to one another. Share some photos and videos, etc..
“So it's a highly engaging method. We then did follow-up interviews with 12 participants to build on what we'd heard in the online community. And then lastly, we conducted a survey with our women to quantify what we'd heard in the qual research and identify any differences by different subgroups. The sample of the survey was 100 nationally represented low-income women.
“But then we also recruited an additional sample of 250 women from each of our four specific audiences. So overall, we’ve got quite a robust sample size, meaning we can have quite a lot of confidence in the results.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Executive Summary’.
Nilen talks through the text: “One thing to note is, we've got lots and lots of insights by different groups, from this research.
“But, just to keep today's session succinct, most of the insights spoken about will be discussed that are overall kind of low-income women level, and there are of course differences and nuances by our different groups. And you can read all about them in the insight report that we've mentioned will be available soon. Or you can get in touch with one of us after this webinar.
“So on this slide, we've got the top three findings from the many findings we’ve unearthed in this research. So firstly, we've learnt that many of our women feel quite ambivalent and indifferent towards their belonging within the world of physical activity. And that creates a state of flux, a stage where people are thinking about becoming more active but not quite taking that leap to do so.
“And actually only 1 in 10 of our women feel like they completely belong in the world of physical activity. Next, we've learnt that there are lots of different barriers that our women encounter that makes it difficult for them to become more active. These can be related to time, finances, their culture, etc. so a whole heap of different challenges.
“And yeah, these can all have an impact on their motivation to be active. And finally, we've learnt that simple solutions and practical guidance work. According to our women, it's not all about having to rip up the playbook completely and start again. But actually fairly basic things like offering gentle, low-impact activities and having more representation within imagery, and within different activity settings, can make our women feel more welcome.”
A new slide appears, with the title “Getting to know our women”. The title text is shown against a grid of images showing headshots of different women from a variety of demographics.
Nilen says: “But we'll go into more detail about each of these as we go through the deck. So in this first section, we're just going to talk a little bit about the background of our women and some of the things that are happening within their lives.”
A new slide comes on screen, with the title “Our women are under financial and time pressures, and are exhausted”. A subheading says “Due to the rising cost of living, and being time poor, our inactive women tend to see exercise as depleting – a suck on the precious energy they have left”.
On the right-hand-side of the screen are two quotes from different women supporting these points.
Nilen continues: “So here we've got the context, some context about the lives of our women. And unfortunately for many of our women, quite a lot of the time life can actually feel quite challenging. Probably unsurprisingly, they've been affected quite hard by the rise in the cost of living over the last few years. It's common for them to report that they're struggling to cover the cost of bills, the cost of groceries, and the cost of a lot of other things.
“They told us that quite a lot of the time they work long, unsociable hours. They have lots of household responsibilities. They have lots of childcare responsibilities that they lead on. And this can lead to a situation where they feel tired and low on energy quite a lot of the time. And actually many of them perceive exercise to be depleting rather than restorative.
“So they don't want to expend what little time they have, on something that they feel will actually make them feel more tired and, actually drain their energy. And many of them also reported that the only bit of spare time they get is towards the end of the day, and they don't want to go out and do exercise at 9 p.m. and that's not something we want to encourage either.”
A new slide appears, with the title “Our women are not feeling great”.
Nilen talks through the text on the slide: “This slide is also quite sad as well, really. I think the key takeaway is that our women are just generally not feeling particularly great. 41% of them said that they sleep poorly. The same percentage, so just 41%, said that they have good energy levels. Under half say that their physical health is good, and over half said that pain limits what they can do.
“And on top of that, we know our women are quite time-poor. Because of their jobs, their childcare and household responsibilities. So understandably, exercise often just doesn't feel that feasible for them. But actually exercise could potentially benefit these women more than plenty of other groups of people, because we know exercise has the potential to give you more energy.
“It can help you sleep better, improve your mood, even improve your mobility potentially. So yeah, it's quite the shame that those who could most benefit from exercise don't currently feel that included within it, or like exercise is something for them. So in terms of implications, I guess in terms of our communication, we need to factor this in and remember that our women are quite often tired and in pain and potentially centre messaging around gentle ways to get restarted.”
A new title slide appears, with the title text “The Belonging Problem”.
Nilen continues: “So in this section, just going to go through some of the data we've discussed in the executive summary, around feelings of belonging.”
The slide changes again. On the left side is the heading ‘Not many women feel like they completely belong in the world of exercise”. On the right side is a bar chart showing the different levels to which women rated their perceived level of belonging in the world of exercise.
Nilen talks through the slide: “So already spoken a bit about this earlier, but, when we asked our women to what extent they feel like they belong in the world of physical activity, a lot of them are actually in the middle with an average score of three, on a scale of 1 to 5. So our women generally feel neither included or excluded, when they think about belonging within the world of physical activity, they generally feel ambivalence and indifference.
“Now, if we're honest, I think, maybe we thought the percentage of women who say that they don't feel like they belong at all within the world of physical activity might actually be higher. But actually ambivalence is still a problem, because ambivalence is one of the main reasons where people think about becoming more active, but not enough to actually take the leap and change their behaviour and start a new activity and then sustain it.
“As you can see, towards the bottom of the slide, only 11% of our women feel like they completely belong in the world of physical activity. And yeah, we'd want this number to ideally be significantly higher. As then we’d think, if more people felt like they completely belonged within physical activity, more would take that leap and start and increase their activity levels.”
A new slide appears, with the title “Are there any places or situations regarding physical activity where our women feel like they don’t belong?” A bar chart is shown underneath listing different exercise settings and the percentage of women who felt they didn’t belong in each one.
Nilen talks through the slide: “So on this slide, we wanted to share some data on how our women feel about specific exercise settings. One thing worth saying is we know that there are so many organisations and people working hard in the sector to make it as inclusive as possible. And that's why we're blessed with having so many people on this call.
“And we're of course very appreciative of that. But I think what this data shows is that there's still more work to be done in all the traditional places that people associate with getting active. And as you can see on this graph, half of our women, so 51%, feel like they don't belong in gyms, and 2 in 5, so 42%, feel the same about sports clubs. And yeah, a slightly lower percentage, reporting the same about exercise classes. So I think this suggests that many of our women feel like they don't belong in common exercise settings. And that of course makes it harder for them to start and maintain habits and routines around exercise.
“One thing I would say is, and I think Steph will come onto this later in more depth, is that many of our women don't have that much recent experience of exercise settings. So for many of them, this sense of lack of belonging could well stem from kind of historical experiences and assumptions, rather than, recent activities, where inclusivity has been given a greater focus.”
A new slide appears, with the title “Bad experiences can have long lasting effects”. A bar chart is shown underneath.
Nilen briefly talks through the slide content: “We won’t spend too long on this slide, but the key takeaway is that bad experiences can be scarring and they can have a lasting legacy. 1 in 6 of our women have actually reported that they've had such a negative experience in physical activity that they've either lost confidence in trying new activities or they've never returned to that type of activity.
“So while 17% is by no means the majority, it's still a sizeable minority. And I guess what we can learn from this is that when our women take the leap and take part in exercise, we need to ensure that their experience is positive. Otherwise, we risk putting them off for an extended period of time.”
A new slide appears, with the title “There is a nuanced relationship between exclusion and inclusion” and some text copy underneath.
Nilen continues: “So on this slide, I think what is important to pull out is that there are actually quite a few nuances within the results. What surprised us was that Black women report the lowest levels of feeling like they don't belong, and women aged 55+ report the highest levels of feeling like they don't belong. Now, what makes this surprising is that women who are 55+ actually report the lowest levels of negative experiences, but they still have this belief around not feeling included, whereas our Black women reported the highest number of negative experiences.
“So actually what we see is probably the inverse. I think we probably need to do a bit more digging and to explore why this is the case, but it indicates that there's a complicated relationship between perceived and actual exclusion, and assumptions might play quite a big part in how inclusive exercise is perceived to be.”
A new title slide appears, with the heading “The Barriers”.
Nilen says: “So yeah, we’re going to move on to the barriers section now. And, yeah, what's worth saying is that women face many barriers when it comes to getting active. Some of the barriers affect all of our women. But then there are also some additional barriers which affect certain groups more or less.”
A new slide appears, with the heading “Our women face a complex set of barriers”. A diagram with some accompanying text summarises some of the key barriers.
Nilen talks through the slide: “So I think this diagram nicely sums up the types of barriers our women encounter. So firstly, we've got ‚’not accessible to me’. So, many women face challenges in accessing exercise opportunities due to cost, timing, the clothing requirements, location of activities and other practical considerations that make it difficult for them to participate. So yeah, these barriers tend to be all quite logistical or practical.
“Secondly, you have barriers around ‚’not my world’. Now, this is in relation to our women don't feel like they completely belong in exercise spaces, which I’ve already mentioned. They don't feel represented, they can feel unsafe and they always don't know what to do. And then we move on to, kind of, this third level of barriers, which is around exercise not being their focus.
“So for most of our women, their families and their communities come first, they wouldn't probably even put themselves as kind of second or third on their list of priorities. They are probably fifth or sixth. So that means that they feel like they don't have the time and energy, to actually kind of dedicate to physical activity, because when they get those moments of time, they would rather spend that on their families or they'd rather spend that doing something which actually kind of helps them unwind, like watching TV or browsing their phones quite understandably.
“And then lastly, we've got the deep-rooted emotional barriers. These are often shaped by women's previous experiences of physical activity and also sometimes what they've heard from others. So many have concerns that exercise, they'll find it overwhelming. They feel like they'll be judged in exercise settings, they'll feel embarrassed. They'll feel inadequate. They will feel frustrated.
“All quite negative feelings that impact self-esteem, motivation, confidence and all things that can have a lasting legacy. And I think this is a deep-rooted barrier which affects probably a large majority of women. So when you overlay these differences, sorry, these types of barriers, you can really see the kind of complexity of the challenges our women face and why it's so difficult for them to be more motivated to be active and kind of increase activity levels.”
A new slide appears with the title “Cost and motivation emerge as top barriers but don’t tell a complete picture”. A bar chart is shown underneath listing different barriers and a percentage rating for each one.
Nilen talks through the data: “So this slide ranks the, kind of top barriers identified by our women. Probably somewhat unsurprisingly, cost came out as the joint top barrier. And yeah, there's no getting away from kind of challenges around cost.
“But if all exercise was free, you would likely still have a proportion of inactive people in England, a high proportion of inactive people. So I guess to support this, walking is of course generally free. But obviously that's an activity that many, many people don't do regularly. So this indicates that barriers go well beyond finances. And yeah, there are kind of other cultural and structural barriers that run deeper.
“And you can see via the graph there are going to be lots of other common barriers that our women face. So, barriers around kind of lack of energy, which we’ve mentioned, confidence, bodies not moving like they used to, etc.. So yeah, quite a few different barriers. And there are differences by subgroups too. For example, pregnant women and new mums were more likely to identify lack of childcare options as a barrier.
“Asian Muslim women were more likely to identify challenges around kind of appropriate clothing to wear. And our Black women were more likely to raise challenges around kind of managing their hair when they're active.”
A new slide appears with the title ‘Life stages matter’ and some supporting text underneath.
Nilen talks through the slide: “And yeah, women also actually encountered distinct barriers to physical activity that evolved with their age, life circumstances and bodily changes. So, recognising these challenges is really key to kind of designing inclusive solutions that encourage women to be active at different stages of their lives. Barriers change as women go through life. So, for example, fear of judgement is a significant barrier for many women in their 20s and quite often the main barrier.
“But then in your 50s, main barriers tend to evolve to be more around kind of, challenges with their body and being in pain and kind of, not necessarily being able to perform the activities they were once able to do. And barriers vary by intersectionality, too. So if you’re Muslim and older, you likely have different barriers to those who are Black and older.
“And the same applies to pregnancy too. And yeah, these differences are all important considerations when designing inclusive provision and inviting our women into activities. So in terms of implication, yeah, I think we've learned that provision, messaging and advice needs to be tailored and nuanced to empower women to be active as they go through different life stages and their needs change.
“And actually also, I think there’s potentially some powerful messaging around reassuring our women that it's okay not to be able to do the activities they once could when they were in their 20s. So for example, being able to run a 10K, and so messaging around kind of, encouraging our women to embrace new and perhaps more gentle activities.”
A new title slide appears, with the heading “The Motivators”.
Nilen says: “I am handing over to Steph at this stage.”
Steph Phillips starts talking, while the slide remains on screen.
Steph says: “Thank you Nilen for laying out the complexity of the barriers. Luckily, we also investigated what would motivate our women despite the barriers so that we can understand the different levers we can pull to help get them active. Next slide please.”
A new slide appears with the heading “Inactive women say they want to exercise for weight loss but for many this isn’t enough to start or sustain activity”. A bar chart underneath shows the different motivators for women, and the percentage rating for each one.
Steph says: “It's probably no surprise to a lot of people that when you ask women what would motivate them to get active, their top response is ‚’help manage my weight’.
“Here we have it closely followed by ‚’improve my fitness’ and ‚’improve my physical health’. Many of our women have tried to exercise to lose weight, but often when they don't see any results, they give up. And these other reasons like improve my fitness or physical health, also feel slightly intangible because they're so future-focussed. And all of this compounds a very all or nothing mindset where our women assume that it takes a lot of time to reap the benefits of exercise, which is why despite listing weight loss as the top motivator, for many this isn't enough to start or sustain activity.”
A new slide appears with the heading “But active women the same audiences see activity differently: They see it as a means to lift their day” with some supporting text alongside it.
Steph continues: “But our active women amongst the same audience, they see activity very differently. They see it as a means to lift their day. So what we mean by that is, when we speak to our active women in the same groups, they don't do exercise to improve their appearance or their health. They literally do it to improve their day. This was a really big unlock for us, because it means that one of the big implications, especially in communications, is to help our women shift seeing exercise being associated with these long-term benefits that take a lot of effort, like to lose weight, and instead to get them to embrace the immediate feel-good benefits of movement on body and mind that can be felt the same day that you actually do it.”
A new slide appears, with the title ‘And once we expanded the potential benefits, better sleep was the number one motivator”. Another bar chart is shown underneath.
Steph explains the data: “What was interesting is once we expanded the full list of potential benefits, we start to see completely different benefits emerge to the top as the main reasons a woman would want to get more active. So you can see ‚’better sleep’ is the number one motivation. Not surprising, given Nilen said so few of our women are sleeping well. The second one is ‚’feeling more confident’, then we have ’managing weight’, which is unsurprising.
And then the third one is ’improving mental health’. So even just within these three things, better sleep, feeling more confident and improving mental health and having that shift in how you feel, there are much more potent motivators for us to play with in our communication.”
A new slide appears, with the heading ‘Action can lead to motivation”. Some body text is shown underneath, and on the right side of the slide is a flow diagram showing the cyclical nature of action and motivation.
Steph continues: “The other interesting thing that we observed in the research is that, of course, many women blame themselves for not being motivated enough to exercise, and they assume that when they will be motivated enough, they will get active. But actually what we observed is something much more interesting, which is that when we invited our women in our research to do just ten minutes of exercise of their choosing, so they could go for a walk, or we gave them a list of three different online videos they could do, many of them ended up doing far more than ten minutes.
“And then the next few days, many of them went on to investigate gym memberships or classes in their area. And what was interesting about this is it shows that action can actually lead to motivation, and not just the other way around, because once you take action, you get an immediate result that you feel in your body, a sense of well-being.
“And that then feeds the motivation to want to keep you more active. And when we did further investigation, it turns out that this has been demonstrated in multiple other studies that actually you just need to break this deadlock of inertia. And then women start to rebuild their confidence and their motivation with it.”
A new slide appears, with the heading ‘Walking is the unifier”. A bar chart underneath shows the preferred physical activities for different demographic groups.
Steph says: “Of course, as Nilen said, walking is always the first thing women say, when you say, ”what type of activity would you like to do?” You can see on the left that the two strongest responses are ‚’walking on my own’ and ‚’walking with others’. But then it's interesting if you look at the other activities because you start to see the differences between audiences in terms of activities that appeal to them.
“So depending on which communities and audiences you work with, some of these results might be useful. If you look at swimming, for example, though very popular with older women, it has far more barriers for Black and Asian Muslim women for different reasons, either for hair management or because people haven't learnt to swim, or because there aren't enough women-only sessions, with female lifeguards and so on.
“But surprisingly, if you talk about dance/activity classes in a pool, if you look at the far right, Black women love that. So it's not really a case of not being attracted to being in a swimming pool. It's just the act of swimming in a pool. Dance classes resonate with a lot of women, especially with culturally relevant music like soca or Afrobeat for our Black women.
“And then family activities are really motivating for Asian Muslim women and of course, those with young babies.”
A new slide appears with the heading “Ultimately, many of our women have similar needs and preferences”. A diagram is shown alongside to illustrate this point.
Steph explains: “But ultimately, many of our women have similar needs and preferences. Even despite all these differences between communities, the four things came up over and over. The first one is ‚’community’. All of our women want community, whether it's online and in real life, to feel accountable to them and supported by them. And to feel like there are other women like them in the same life stages, going through the same struggles.
“And it keeps them motivated to keep coming back. ‚’Guidance’ is really important. If you think of this audience, many of our women don't have a blueprint for what activities should be like, what should they expect? How do they deal with being sore? How did they adjust what they're doing for injuries or pain? And many of them said they need a lot of hands-on help to help get them restarted.
“It's not just a case of getting them motivated. They also need guidance. ‚’Suitability’ was a huge thing that came back under multiple names. This is really about meeting women where they are at now. They need gentle classes for re-starters, and a lot of them don't want to risk going to an all-level class and then being the weakest one there.
“They really want to know that they're going to be surrounded by women of their body type, their ability. They need help setting achievable goals that are right for them now in their new bodies, whether that's after having a baby or maybe after going through menopause. And ideally, classes that fit within their timetables, which can be pretty challenging for a lot of our women.
“The biggest opportunity that came up was really the morning, after the school run, and weekend mornings also. And lastly, ’enjoyment’. A lot of our research pointed to the fact that women think that ‚’exercise’ is very loaded as a word and feels very serious, and this absence of joy or playfulness, we know is a big deterrent for women, and that enjoyment is highly correlated to women partaking in activity. So this encompasses the music, how welcoming a class is, how you’re spoken to throughout that class. But that joy was a really big component for our women.”
A new title slide comes up with the heading “The Opportunity for the Sector”.
Steph continues: “So the opportunity for the sector is something that we investigated to understand what exactly our women wanted and needed.”
A new slide appears, with the title “Our women want practical solutions from the sector” and some supporting text copy and bullet points.
Steph talks through the slide: “Across the board, our women want practical solutions from the sector. We gave them a whole battery of things that they could select. And 84% of our women want practical support things like childcare, transport, flexible timing, free class options, nearby locations and women-only facilities, and 82% of our women asked for help getting started. So some of the ideas that we had put in are things where 15-minute taster sessions so that women didn't feel they had to commit to a 45-minute or hour session, re-starter only classes, and you've heard us use this word, ’re-starter’ a few times.
“Many of our women are not beginners. Once upon a time they were active, but maybe they haven't been active for a few months, maybe even for a few years. So this idea of just restarting and getting back into movement is important. And then just gentle exercise options. Some of our women asked for a ‚’no burpee promise’ and commitment.”
A new slide appears with the title “Most don’t know it’s already there”. Some supporting text is underneath, with a collage of exercise ads shown on the right side of the slide.
Steph continues: “In a lot of cases, as Nilen said, our women are often working off assumptions, historical knowledge or hearsay. Many of them haven't actually had direct contact with the sector for a while, and when we set them a discovery task for them to go and see what already existed in their neighbourhood, many of them actually found free or low-cost offerings that met lots of their requirements, even including childcare.
“The implication for us really, is that our women are not going out to seek what is on offer to them locally. So we need to bring the knowledge of what exists into their world and try and intercept them so that they can see that it even exists in the first place.”
A new title slide appears with the heading “How we can help our women”.
Steph says: “So how can we help our women? And this is really just a summary of a lot of the insights that we've received until this point.”
A new slide appears with the title “Top 4 things to help our women get moving” and some bullet points listed underneath.
Steph talks through the slide content: “We summarised it as four things. The first is help our women see exercise as restorative rather than depleting. The emphasis should be on the immediate benefits, including better sleep and mood. Secondly, we need to make it easier for them to restart by promoting and providing activities that are accessible, fun, bite-sized and offering a supportive community.
“It's more inviting to them to focus on restarters rather than what we typically do, which is to offer all levels, which can still be very intimidating. Help with their mindset - our women need regular nudges and encouragement, as well as help transforming their all or nothing mindsets around exercise. Anything we can do to inspire women to do even a little, that even a little makes a big difference to start breaking that inertia.
“And lastly, being as representative as possible in all of our communications. There are many tropes in the world of exercise of showing skinny women, women who are just, you know, wearing their bras and no tops. And it's very important to all of our women that this goes beyond racial representation. This is about body types, skin tones, but also dress code, as well as reflecting life stages, women with their children, women who are older.
“All of this will signal to women that they do belong in these spaces. And with that, I will hand you over to Scott.”
A new title slide appears showing a women in a park meditating, with the title text “Resources for you” shown alongside the image.
Scott Radcliffe appears in a small window next to the slide, which fills most of the screen.
Scott says: “Thank you Nilen and Steph. So as you all can see from the extensive research that we've just gone through, there is a lot of new information to share with you. And so we have produced a range of assets, which aim to present this information in a digestible way and allow you to share it with your networks. And if you're an activity provider, consider how you might adapt your current offerings or even create new ones, to meet our women's needs.”
A new slide appears with the heading “Resources available” and a list of bullet points underneath.
Scott talks through the slide content: “So just an overview of the resources that will be available. To share this, we have created the following resources for you. The Insight report itself, which is relevant to anyone within the physical activity sector and provides a detailed look at the motivations and barriers our women face, which we've just gone through.
“A short film which you saw earlier, which highlights some of the key takeaways from the research and acts as a bit of a teaser to the main document. The film can also be used by some of our larger organisations for signposting or just to set the scene when engaging with your partners. And for those same larger organisations like Active Partnerships, national governing bodies or other system partners, we've also produced a comms toolkit with several tools to help you share the insight more widely with your networks.
“All of these resources will be available to download from the This Girl Can Campaign Hub. The URL is www.thisgirlcan.co.uk/startwithinclusion. And I think Jo's helpfully shared that in the chat. The form and the toolkit are available now. And the Insight report will be available to download from Monday, this coming Monday the 31st of March. So do take a look at that.”
A new slide appears with the heading “Insight report”, some supporting bullet points, and some screenshots from the report.
Scott continues: “In terms of a bit more detail on the Insight report and the documents themselves. So the insight report is a fully accessible PDF document. And this has been designed to detail all the research that Nilen and Steph have just taken us through today, and presented in a digestible way.
“So it covers everything that I talked about, including the methodology that was used to develop the insights, the barriers to getting active that our women are sharing with us. Then what would motivate our woman to get active, and also what we can all do to help them get active. And we've highlighted some of the key things to think about around representation, practical support, and suggested activities.”
A new slide appears with the heading “Campaign toolkit”, some supporting bullet points, and some images from the toolkit.
Scott talks through the slide: “Then on the campaign toolkit. So this is aimed at those larger organisations I mentioned and has been designed to help you share the Insight report with the clubs, groups or other organisations you may work with. Like the Insight report, it's a fully accessible PDF document that will provide you with some more context to this new phase of the campaign and will include the key messaging and highlight the main takeaways from the Insight report.
“It will include the following assets or links to them on the campaign hub. So an editable presentation for you to use at events to help present those insights, and possibly look at it from a local lens. Suggested copy that you can use to share the insights from the report on your website, emails and newsletters. And then we've also produced three social media assets with key takeaways from the insight for use on your channels.”
A second “Campaign toolkit” slide appears, showing more images from the toolkit. This is followed soon after by another group of images from the toolkit.
Scott continues: “And over the next two slides, is just a bit of a snapshot of what's included in the toolkit, with some of the key messages highlighted here. The long and short copy that's been provided to help you share the information through your websites, newsletters, if relevant to you. And then on the next one, some of the examples of the social assets we've developed, which you'll be able to edit and include your logo on when you share through your own channels.”
A new slide appears with the title “How you can help” and some supporting bullet points underneath. An image of a smiling woman is shown alongside this.
Scott says: “So how can you help? Well, we'd encourage you all to read the Insight report, in full. And for those of you engaging with delivery partners like Active Partnerships, NGBs as I've mentioned, we'd encourage you to share the Insight report with the organisations you work with, and use the toolkit provided to help highlight some of the key takeaways and the opportunities that exist.
“If you're an activity provider, consider how this might influence your current offerings. And if relevant, this could mean making small changes to your activities or simply how you communicate and tell people about them. And as mentioned, the film and toolkit are ready to view and download from the campaign hub and the Insight report will be available on Monday, the 31st of March.
“So please visit the campaign hub, or click on the link that we have shared with you. And then just looking ahead.”
A new slide appears with the title “Looking ahead” and some bullet points underneath. An image of two women hiking is shown on the left.
Scott continues: “So, before our ‚’Celebrate It’ advertising campaign launches in September, we will release another set of comms assets, which again will allow you to support the campaign, and localise and tailor the messaging to the women in your own areas, and communities.
“So thank you very much. And I'm now going to hand over to Kate Dale.”
The video window of Scott changes to a video window of Kate Dale, Director of Marketing for Sport England.
A new slide appears, with the heading “A conversation with Active Wellbeing Society and Saathi House”. Two thumbnail images appear of Ammaarah Faisal, This Girl Can Community Engagement Lead in Birmingham; and Tiffany Joseph, Centre Manager of Saathi House and Owner of MIU Wellness Hub.
Kate Dale says: “Thank you very much, Scott. I've been involved with This Girl Can since the very beginning. Since before the beginning. And one of the unexpected joys of the campaign has been meeting with and talking to some of the incredible people out there that are already doing incredible things, to be honest, and finding out what's going on on the ground. And it's just how we can connect all that together and make even more of it.
“So I am delighted today, to be joined by two of them, Ammaarah Faisal, who is Birmingham This Girl Can Community Engagement Lead, at the Active Wellbeing Society and has worked with organisations throughout Birmingham, to really help them bring This Girl Can to life, and really tackle social and health inequalities. And Tiffany Joseph, who is Centre Manager at Saathi House, and is also the proud owner of the MIU Wellness Hub. Tiffany's particularly passionate about empowering young girls and creating opportunities for them to be active in ways that work for them, and has a strong and proud sporting background herself.
“So, yeah, lovely to meet you. And thank you for joining us.”
The slide disappears, and is replaced by a full-screen view of Kate Dale, Ammaarah and Tiffany in conversation.
Kate D says: “Just to try and build on what we've learned and think about, I guess, how we can apply this insight and practice, because I think, it can feel overwhelming when you see all of it. Tiffany, let's start with you. Can you just tell us a bit about your role at Saathi House and the women and girls you're working with to get active?”
Tiffany replies: “Yeah, sure. So I'm Centre Manager at Saathi House and we have been working in the community for around 50 years. We’re a women's organisation based in Aston, but the majority of our service users are South Asian females. So we try to offer sessions around health and wellbeing, personal development, creative arts, youth work and support services.”
Kate D responds: “And Tiffany, when you listen to the Insight that we’re sharing, does that resonate with you in terms of the women who you work with?”
Tiffany answers: “Yeah, definitely. I was kind of nodding along to a lot of things that were being said in the slide and can completely relate to the things that are being mentioned, especially the barriers and the motivations as well.”
Kate D asks: “And so what have you done, I guess with, with your experience of working with them to overcome some of the barriers, and identify and work with the motivations so that they feel that what you're providing is welcome and inclusive?”
Tiffany says: “I think the thing we try to do most is kind of create that community where all women feel welcome and included. So a key focus of that is representation, especially within the South Asian community. So having a diverse range of coaches and facilitators that kind of represent the communities that we work with is really, really important because we ultimately want to create that space where people do feel welcome and they do feel included in the sessions as well.”
Kate D says: “Fantastic, and when we were talking the other day as well, you talked about the importance of the trusted voice and consistency as well. So taking time to build this up and finding the right people or organisations to talk to them, how important is that?”
Tiffany answers: “It is really important. Trust is the most important thing. I think having sessions that run consistently with people that they trust is really, really important. And I think consistency also, I think if people feel like something’s going to run for 6 or 8 weeks, they're less likely to engage in the sessions if they're going to miss 2 or 3 of them.
“But if they know it's going to be a long-term or a session that's going to be running there throughout then they're more likely to dip in and out. And I think once we've kind of got them in and they’ve enjoyed the session and they feel welcome and they feel included, they're more likely to come back again for more sessions.”
Kate D says: “Again, something I, I love that you said is if you get somebody along, getting them into the first session is often the hardest bit. If they have a great experience when they're there, you kind of got them.”
Tiffany replies: “Definitely. I think if you can make someone feel like they're part of something and they have enjoyed, they've enjoyed their session and you know, they're more likely to come back. I think even from the slideshow, it showed that it’s that hesitation, it’s that ‚’am I going to fit in?’ You know, ‚’have I got the right skill set?’
“You know, ’is it gonna be too difficult for me?’ So once we can kind of cater for women in different skills, then, you know, they're more likely to come back for that second and third session. And they’ll also tell their friends to come as well.”
Kate D says: “Yeah. Fantastic. Lovely. Thank you. Ammaarah, coming on to you, I believe your connections to Saathi House go back a long way actually, you were telling me?”
Ammaarah says: “Yeah. So my grandma was part of the founding team of Saathi House back in the 70s. So my personal connections to Saathi House go back a long way. I've grown up with it in my kind of personal life. And then when I joined the workforce in Birmingham, I was a bit starstruck, actually to see how important it is in the professional world as well, because it's always really important to me and I think seeing some of my grandma’s work still kind of having impacts 50 years down the line is, yeah, it's incredible.”
Kate D says: “Oh, that's given me the feels, but I love, I love that and I think that really brings to life the importance of, it goes back to what was saying about trusted voices in community and understanding, where the organisations that are really fitting in, or the places or the spaces that fit in with our women's lives. And working through them rather than saying, ”come over to here to where we are” into a completely alien or somewhat alien environment. And then being surprised when that doesn't quite, quite land, that is lovely I'm sure your grandmother is very proud of you. Or would be very proud of you. So tell us a bit more about the work that you've been doing across Birmingham, I guess, and how you’ve been helping them bring This Girl Can to life, or just meet the needs of their women.”
Ammaarah answers: “Yeah. So I think it's like you say, working kind of with the existing community groups has kind of been the forefront of my mind when I joined the campaign. A lot of community groups are already out there in Birmingham. Birmingham’s a really, really broad place with a lot of different, diverse communities, and a lot of those communities have created groups born out of need.
“They already know kind of what they want, what they need, what their barriers might be. They just may struggle in terms of resources or the infrastructure to kind of keep things going and sustainable. And I think one thing that's been really important to me when I've worked with women and girls in Birmingham is kind of going where that need is, and having conversations with the communities to find out what they might want from the campaign over the next couple of years, what might be helpful.
“So, for example, focusing on kind of a more holistic approach, I guess, to sport and activity and as kind of was mentioned in the slideshow, sometimes exercise is a bit of a buzzword. People do tend to kind of recoil a bit from it if they haven't had good experiences with it. And I think the approach for This Girl Can in Birmingham is much more kind of wraparound.
“So one of the projects, for example, that I'm doing with Saathi House is more of a menstrual health period poverty project. So looking at kind of how to untangle the myths around periods and kind of tackle the stigma and the taboo that's around it with that kind of cultural lens, whilst also kind of providing taster sessions for activities and giving the girls a variety of options, I guess, of things that they could love and could really enjoy and then might want to carry on outside of that.”
Kate D responds: “That's fantastic. I think one thing that really strikes me, this is a question to both of you is, again, when you’re sort of presented with all the insight and see how much there is, it can feel overwhelming and it can feel like it's going to be complicated and expensive. And, you know, ‚’where do I start?’ But I think from what both of you are saying, there's actually some really simple steps that can be taken, that thing of just starting by, and it's what we always say with This Girl Can, is you start by listening, truly listening to women about what they need and what they want.
“And I think, getting down into those different groups of women and recognising that, even if they have demographic characteristics in common, women's experience, a particular group of women’s experience in Birmingham, might be different to, Leeds or Manchester or Cumbria where I'm from, or wherever, and so really understanding hyperlocally what's needed, has that's been what's worked for you Tiffany?
“That's a leading question, isn't it?” [laughter]
Tiffany answers: “Definitely, I think it's really important to always get feedback from whoever you're working with, because sometimes we think we know what the right thing is and actually we don't. So having those conversations, really understanding the barriers, and their needs and their preferences as well, will go a long way to kind of, getting the sessions or getting activity, or people moving more as well
“And I think, you know, the people on the ground are your superpower. So use them, go to them, ask the questions you need to ask ‚’cos they're going to give you all the answers that you need.”
Kate D says: “Fantastic. And I think one of the, I talk about this a lot but when I think that, the powers that women have and one of the things I think is that really in our favour is that we have the power to talk and share our vulnerabilities, and we've been brought up to do that much more. So I think actually asking those questions is not, it's not that difficult, is it?
“We will talk. And if you’re me you will never stop talking. But Ammaarah, how do you manage though, I think one of the challenges, especially for organisations such as yours, where you're working with a number of different groups, which will all have different needs, maybe sometimes competing needs as well, is how do you provide support across all of those, and how do you manage to do all of that? There's a lot.”
Ammaarah says: “It is a lot. Yeah. I think crucially, like you say, women are not a monolith. No community is monolithic. We're all made up of many different characteristics and many different life experiences. But I think I, I think I'm trying to aim for kind of where's the most impact. So going where the need is. And the only way to do that is by having conversations.
“Like Tiffany said, go to the communities, talk to them, be with them. You know, for example, it's Ramadan this month. So many organisations across Birmingham are doing Open Iftars where you can just go and chat and just be with them. And I think out of those conversations, you kind of organically learn what the needs are, and also what might work to help with those needs and what might help to tackle those barriers.
“But I think what's really important is that we don't try and kind of from a, from a partner's point of view, don't try and roll out more kind of generic programmes, I think is really important because like you say, there are a lot of needs, even within one community like mine, the South Asian Muslim Bangladeshi community, it's small but powerful, but within that we still have so many different needs.
“And I think it's really, really important that we don't just try and tackle all of it, but maybe go a little bit deeper and have more impact amongst a few people. And kind of that ripple effect will grow because they will, like Tiffany said, talk to their friends, talk to their family, their mums, their sisters. And I think having that knock-on effect is really important.”
Kate D says: “That ripple effect is so powerful, isn’t it. And I think the, the effect on one person as well of getting active and I mean, you must see this with your thing about empowering women and girls especially Tiff, the confidence and once they've got the confidence to getting active that unlocks so many things in, in someone's life.”
Tiffany says: “Yeah. Yeah. I think as well that I think when we’re catering sessions, we need to really think about who we’re catering towards, and focus on that group. Because if we stay more neutral, we're going to actually exclude people. So we need to make sure we're focusing on the group, so then we can work on building their confidence, like you said.
“And then the cohesive session will follow on from that afterwards. But sometimes we just need to make people feel comfortable and included, and then everything else follows afterwards.”
Kate D says: “Fantastic. Thank you. And, I think, I’d like to explore the role of This Girl Can, particularly because you would be doing this anyway, this is the work that you're doing on the ground and it's amazing. But how have you seen, and this is absolutely a leading question I know, but feel free to say what you want, the role of This Girl Can and being able to use the logo, the branding to connect to something that maybe has a national profile, has a little bit of I guess brand fame, does that have a role to play? Does that make a difference?”
Ammaarah replies: “Yeah, definitely. I think having that kind of branding. So I’m a community engagement role. But I'm still part of This Girl Can, I'm not part of the national marketing, but having that is definitely the hook. It kind of opens doors. It does get the conversation going. Everyone I've spoken to knows who This Girl Can is.
“They know this campaign and they trust it, which I think is really important. I think because it's fairly obviously a campaign designed by women for women, and inclusive of all women. However you are, however you identify, whatever your background is, I think it does open the door to have those conversations that may otherwise be shut down because they're about sport and exercise.
“And I think because it is very obviously representative, that definitely does pave the way to kind of open those doors and have those maybe more difficult conversations, for sure. And I think because there's that trust we’re a lot further down the line than if I was working at an organisation that didn't have that.”
Kate D says: “Great thank you. And, Tiffany, do you find that it's helpful with your work?”
Tiffany answers: “Yeah, it gives that, like Ammaarah said, it gives that kind of credibility and trust to a campaign that people know. And you feel part of as well. So it definitely helps with the work we do as well.”
Kate D says: “Obviously quite relieved that you said that. That's great. And that is absolutely what we want the campaign to do. I think over the last ten years, we've now built a platform and a voice, and we can have a point of view, but that's the point of view on behalf of all the women we're trying to reach.
“So it would be numerous views. And so, if you haven't signed up to support on the This Girl Can website, you can do so and then you can access all of these resources. The frustration of my job is I never have enough time to talk to all of you. We're going to have to wrap up shortly.
“But just one quick question to both of you. Anyone who may be coming to this for the first time, or repeated times, it doesn't matter. But what is, in terms of, it's talking to the audiences we're talking to, our women, as we’ve said throughout this presentation, if you had to give them one piece of advice, what would it be?
“Tiffany, we’ll start with you.”
Tiffany says: “Yeah, definitely go out and speak to women and find out what their needs are, what their barriers are. And, you know, and again, like what their motivators are, what can we do to bring people in. Just improving physical activity 10 to 15 minutes a day. Doesn't have to be an hour. And it will, it can change their life.
“I've seen it myself. We've all seen it ourselves as well. So yeah, go out and speak to people.
Kate D says: “Lovely. Thank you. Tiffany. Ammaarah, has she stolen your answer?
Ammaarah answers: “Yeah a little bit. Making my job a bit harder. Yeah. Exactly. Build on exactly what Tiffany said. But also I guess for maybe partners and kind of NGBs: be sustainable as well. Don't kind of go in and, and promise things and then not be able to follow through. Like I said, go where the need is and then put something in place that things can last.
“So if you're going in and kind of dropping in a series of sessions at six weeks, could you do it whilst training someone in that community so that they can then deliver that afterwards in case funding runs out or venues change? And I think create those pathways so that communities can kind of continue to run and be active themselves outside of NGB work.”
Kate D says: “Wonderful. Thank you both so much for taking part this morning and for the fantastic work that you're doing. I think my take outs from this are: be consistent and build trust. Listen, be consistent, build trust and sign up as a This Girl Can supporter. Thank you all for everything that you're doing.
“And I am now going to hand back to Kate Peers.”
Kate Peers reappears in a small video window, alongside a slide that takes up most of the screen. The slide features a girl playing rugby and the heading “Three things you can do now” with some bullet points underneath.
Kate P talks through the slide: “Thank you so much, Kate. And a huge thank you to Ammaarah and Tiffany. That was such an insightful conversation. I really, really enjoyed that. And so many key learnings. So thank you. Before we conclude, just a massive thank you to you all. There are three key actions that we're asking in the short term. So the first is to please complete our webinar survey.
“And that link should be going into the chat, any time now. So thank you, Jo. The second is when it's available, we encourage you to read the Insight report and think about what this means for you and your own work. And then third, please do use the communications toolkit to share the insight with your partners, have conversations and apply the learning how you think is best for your own work in your own communities.
“We'll be following up, for anyone who's registered this webinar with the links to, to all of the resources that Scott took you through.”
A ‘Thank you’ slide appears, showing a woman concentrating and looking into the distance. She is wearing a shirt with the word ‘finisher’ on it.
Kate P says: “So it just leaves me to say thank you so much to everyone for joining. It's together that we can create even more spaces and opportunities for our women to move in ways that are right for them and ultimately to create a world of activity where every woman feels that they belong.
“So thank you.”
The “Thank you” slide becomes full screen, and the video concludes.
