Alex: 0:37

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Working it Out podcast. Today we have Lil Duggan from Active Surrey, the CEO. Welcome to the podcast, Lil.

Lil: 0:48

Hi, thanks for having me.

Alex: 0:51

No worries at all. Thank you very much for coming on. What we do for our first question, which is our fun one is asking all of our members, you're now part of the Working Out community, whether you have a choice, you don't have a choice at all, you're in you get to induct one item into our Working it Out locker. So after you, which one item would you like to induct into our offer?

Lil: 1:11

Well, thanks for making me part of the Working it Out community. Yeah, I had a good think about this. And actually before I should highlight this was before I got married, before I had children I went on a creative writing course and in the creative writing course, they said can you just all write down what comes into your head when you think about the happiest moment of your life. What sprung into my head felt incredibly trivial compared to what a lot of people were talking about at that time. But that is actually, that moment was captured on camera. So what I'm going to put into the locker is that photo.

Alex: 1:45

Okay.

Lil: 1:46

So the photo is incredibly unposed. It's not one of those ones where everyone lines up with the trophy. It was the moment that we finished a varsity football match at university that we had won and it had been incredibly hard to win it. We weren't the better team but we were a stronger team and the photo was captured as we came off the pitch with delighted expressions on our faces, just sheer joy. And it was such a special moment. And I guess it made me think about what makes a team. I'm I love team sports. That's where I get my buzz from. And to be able to be there with people that I got really close to when I started playing football at university. I've never played before. I wasn't a professional in any way, shape or form. There were better people. There were worse people. But we all were really committed to the team that meant turning up to training when it was pouring with rain and in the end we won our intercollegiate competition, and then we were asked to form a university second team and that was the match that we played the big varsity game that we won. So it was an amazing feeling, and that's what I'm going to put in the locker.

Alex: 2:53

That's an incredible one. I really enjoy that one. I relate to that so much because I am, I worked at the University of Portsmouth and we I was part of a team that was arranging varsities and it was such a big point in the year. Was this when you're University of Oxford, am I correct?

Lil: 3:08

That's right, yeah,

Alex: 3:09

And your varsity against, was it everything against Cambridge?

Lil: 3:13

yeah,

Alex: 3:13

But that had so much prestige to it, it must have meant so much to you. That's really cool. So yeah, when I was arranging down in Portsmouth, it was against Southampton, and that's a huge rivalry that, for the cities more than it is for the universities themselves.

Lil: 3:26

yeah, no, absolutely.

Alex: 3:28

It means absolutely everything to me. It's probably the only time of the year where the local community gets involved in university activity because otherwise it was those bloody students, but that one weekend everyone was together because it was Portsmouth versus Southampton. Those varsity wins just meant everything.

Lil: 3:45

Yeah,

Alex: 3:45

So did you play football before university? Was football a big part of your life or was it something that you got into throughout education?

Lil: 3:53

So when it comes to sport, I'm a jack of all trades and master of none. I just love getting stuck into whatever is available to me. Generally I enjoy things with a ball the most, but I used to do running as well. I was in 800, did 800 meters. Yeah. Fundamentally and this is something I think we'll dive into later, for me, I know what my body can do and therefore I don't feel, I feel like I can get stuck into whatever opportunity comes up. And so for me at university, it was amazing to be able to try so many different things and just have a go at them. But fundamentally my main sport is netball.

Alex: 4:27

Is netball nice? Is that something that you still play now?

Lil: 4:30

Well, and again, this is probably something we'll get to my, Sport, physical activity and movement relationship has changed over time and I do suffer with some long term health conditions and also incredibly bad knees, which mean that I've had to adapt how I move. And I think the fact that I know that it's important to me has made me be able to focus on things that probably wouldn't have been my first choice when I was younger. But now I know a good for me like yoga. So I know that enables doing that regularly, even though I'm truly awful at it enables me to be able to carry on doing a little bit more of the things I love. But I think netball is one thing too many. And yeah, so I've had to, I've had to adapt to what I think are probably more grown up activities. But yeah, it's a shame, but at least I can carry on moving.

Alex: 5:22

But that's really interesting. And we don't have to dig into that one later. I think it's really interesting to flow into that now, really. So you say you're living with some long term health conditions. What does that look and feel like for you on a daily basis? Can you give some more information?

Lil: 5:34

I have condition autoimmune conditions, and that means that I can suffer from quite, severe fatigue. I also means I have to regularly medicate. So that just means I have to think about when the timings of things occur and making sure that I have regular meals. So it In the main, it's something I can manage, but I just need to know my little workarounds and make sure that I don't really over strain myself too much. And that combined with the fact that my knees has have no cartilage left underneath them due to misshapen knees, I should say mean that it's hard to do some of those higher impact activities. But I found now as I've got older that I know I need to keep moving. I cycle regularly with friends, not in a sort of hugely competitive, lycra clad way, but have a little gang from my street and we meet up on the mornings of the weekends and we just go out together and do a little ride and more importantly, a good natter. I walk a lot. I do yoga. And if I do my yoga, then I can do some slightly more active things when I want to, but I can't do them on a really regular basis anymore. But the other day, having played a little bit when I was on holiday, I went started at a pickleball club on this week, actually, and that that's a really good activity that I think I'd be able to carry on doing.

Alex: 6:50

It's really growing so fast and I've seen some articles saying that they feel like tennis is at risk because of how accessible pickleball is and how easy it is to pick up and just play with friends how have you found that?

Lil: 7:03

Yeah, no, it was absolutely so much fun. We've done a little bit. We do as an active partnership, we do regular physical activity, outings for staff. So we might do a picnic and rounders in the park or a netball game or football. And we've done a team pickleball as well, but you're right. It's something that no matter what your ability, you can play and And where I went at Woking Leisure Centre had a really inclusive atmosphere too. So I was quickly sort of formed into a four and that rotated around and yeah really fun.

Alex: 7:32

Amazing and then going back to cycling because i'd like to do My digging through profiles and I saw a great photo of you in a in one of your local bikes that you can rent and you're promoting them. So is it That's great Is this something that you regularly use, or are you trying to push something locally for cycling in Surrey?

Lil: 7:49

Yeah, so we Active Surrey has been doing a lot of work around making cycling more accessible for everybody. Surrey has got some of the most congested roads and we know that cycling is good not just for the environment but also for our physical and mental well being so we've been working closely with Surrey County Council to explore how we can make-bikes more accessible. So we have a scheme going currently where we take-bikes from the local recycling centre they get done, when they're donated in, we They get them done up by one of the local open prisons, and then we distribute them out to people in the community who may not be able to have access to a bike. we also as a team have decided that we can't be expecting other people to cycle if we don't cycle ourselves. So we've purchased some e-bikes for the team so that we can make a shift on those local journeys between when we might've taken the car to riding ourselves. So that post was a bit of a nudge to say, look. We can all do this. And e-bikes mean that you can just go that bit further, faster. And they are so much fun to ride as well.

Alex: 8:53

When we start talking about the second half, I'm sure we're going to dig into a lot of strategies like that. I'm going to bank that one for now, talking about your relationship with physical activity. And I can see of like Pickleball club, netball team, Even the things where you say the softer type of activities that your body can manage their classes, and you're saying ball sports, football at university. It sounds like the social, and you highlighted it earlier, the social part of sport is really important to you.

Lil: 9:21

A hundred percent. Yeah. I think it's fundamental to my relationship with it. Some of my closest friends have been on teams with me. And I really enjoy the social side. I really enjoy being able to share my love of movement alongside doing it with people. And that for me is I think I would struggle to do really individual things. And actually, I think that was one of the reasons why I pivoted away from athletics and moved more into team sports, use my running ability in a team environment because I am a social person and that for me gives it an extra benefit.

Alex: 9:53

Of course, yeah, I'm exactly the same. I've spoken about this so much in previous podcasts about myself. But so that, that links really nicely into like how sport just can. Give you so many different emotions. So when it comes to physical activity for you, if you were to pick one emotion that would describe your relationship with it, what would that one emotion be?

Lil: 10:14

I think it links back to that photo I described and the word is joy because actually when you look back on memories, so many of them are related, or so many of my special memories are related to sport and physical activity. It's all about when you've pushed yourself with people around you and that tremendous sense of euphoria at the achievement that you've done, how hard you've worked, but it really kind of pushes those really, that strength of emotion from you. And and sometimes it's just that sheer love of moving, whether it's riding down a hill or running across the sand, wherever you are, you just can feel that sense of kind of flying and freedom. And yeah, so I've chosen the word joy.

Alex: 10:54

Yeah, this is an amazing word and I think there's so much that we've spoken about already where you can see, where you get so much joy out doing physical activity, even speaking about when on holiday doing some stuff. I think, the real part of quite interested in as well in terms of, because we tried to pick out the highs and lows of your relationship with physical activity. So you've saying that there's been times where your knees have been bad or related to your long term health conditions. Is there any times where you feel throughout the years where you felt like you haven't been able to get the joy from physical activity because of milestones in your life?

Lil: 11:26

Yeah, no, I think so. I think, life is a series of invention and reinvention. And I would love to be still actively playing netball and still able to run freely. I won't be able to do that again. I know that. And that's been a low when you have to, you have, that your body is going to have to adjust because it causes too much pain to carry on doing that. I also know that I am totally rubbish at yoga and I'm not sure whether there will ever be a point where I can touch my toes because of tight hips and short hamstrings, but my long legs are good for other things. I think you reach a stage in life where you make peace with what you can do and accept your body and are grateful to your body for what it can do. And know that there are certain things that you have to continue to do in order to keep yourself healthy and strong. And a lot of people now are talking about that mindset of, what do I want to be able to achieve when I am 80? What physical activity levels will be expected of me? And therefore, what do I need to be doing now in order to retain that? So whilst I love sport, I'm also really aware of more functional fitness. Making sure that I can keep walking and cycling as I wish to, making sure that I have the strength to go for long walks and all those things are really important to me. Yeah, so thinking about not just that sort of short term pleasure of playing a game, but also that kind of longterm investment in the strength of your body.

Alex: 12:50

That's one thing that I've been really bad at. And my wife gets very frustrated at me at because I always think I'll dive into an activity now and so injury prone it's always something. And I should start thinking more long term about my body, but I just don't, I'm not, I just can't because I'm like I'm going to dive in a hundred percent into American football and then just get absolutely beaten up. And my wife go your body's not prepared, wasn't prepared for that. So we've got your one item now and we've got your one emotion. The next part is around your earliest memory of being active. Is there a specific memory that comes to mind?

Lil: 13:24

We've got, we've covered it already, but it's running. We had a little dog when I was growing up and I can remember going to a sort of long ridge of a hill and just and and feeling like I was flying and how wonderful it was to be able to just stretch your legs out and go and then building on that running, I can remember getting my first pair of studs for athletics and treating them like they were the most precious thing in the world and and keeping them shiny and new for as long as I could. And, yeah, I think all that links back to that kind of sense of joy and freedom that comes from, for me, from being active.

Alex: 14:01

So running with the dog, that's one thing which comes up quite more often than you, I first would think, but those memories of I had to get out for the dog. So I'm just, I'm going to go, might as well go for a run as well. But when you're a child, it more is just the relationship that you have with your pets and those really good memories. And I guess, yeah, like you say, link linking to joy.

Lil: 14:23

And, I also think that memory, I wasn't intending to go for a run. I was just there in the moment and ran and I can remember that sense of feeling like you were flying as you ran along the top of this hill and so it's slightly different from that intentionality of running. It's just that kind of spontaneous movement of a body when you're a child and how that feeling of exhilaration is stuck with me as a memory.

Alex: 14:48

yeah that's fantastic. I think that a lot of the things here link to and a lot of stuff you've spoken about today. As a child, people would normally talk about education and I did this in school or I did this for school up until this conversation. Now we've only really spoken about the sport from a he point of view, and it was more the social side of that. So it seems like education wasn't that much of an influence on your relationship with physical activity today? Is that correct?

Lil: 15:19

I think it's probably an underlying element of it but not a key part of it. In school, I, in secondary school, I can always remember being, invited to join a lot of teams. I was the classic person that, that sort of is in the swim team, the lacrosse team, the we randomly played lacrosse at my school in did athletics at sports day. I can remember really enjoying it, whereas lots of my friends didn't really enjoy it. So I guess I don't necessarily, and actually I went to a school reunion not so long ago and the PE teacher was there and, she must have said, I've seen hundreds of kids, but she remembered me that was really special also to, to know that had stuck with her, I suppose, in the enjoyment and she was so pleased that I'd stayed in the sector.

Alex: 16:04

It's amazing that your school did activities like lacrosse because I always find like now my school growing up, it pretty much was football. And if you didn't want to do football, you didn't really do anything. There was no other teams for any other sports. They did occasional stuff for a bit of hockey there, but no teams, no competing against other schools, no training of any sorts. It was just like PE, you'd mess around, but outside of that, it was just football. If I had the opportunity to do lacrosse or other team sports growing up, I think I don't, what would I have done? I maybe would have started American football a lot earlier. It wasn't until after school that I found that and enjoyed that.

Lil: 16:41

Yeah, I guess I was lucky because it was a state school, but I guess it was quite progressive in the breadth that it offered its young people. So yeah, really lucky.

Alex: 16:54

That's two episodes in a row that we spoke to Dan who's from UK Wallball. And I've forgotten what the sport is called fives. He said he did fives in school, which is a very old school, traditional sport. So that's two podcasts in a row where there's been a real diverse mix of sports, which is actually really nice to see. So this part now is where we start to transition into yourself and your organization and the work that they do. And then I will dig into what your beliefs are for the the root causes of inactivity in England. So first, could you give a bit of an overview about your history and your organization and the links it has to physical activity?

Lil: 17:30

So I guess I'm an unusual person in the in this sector hasn't been my life's career. And I've, I guess I've had a career of two halves because I started out life working in global marketing strategy and innovation in the drinks industry. And I had two brilliant employers in Heineken and Pernod Ricard, who have a massive portfolio of wines, spirits and, and so on. And I think there's so much that I learned from working in that sector that I have been applying to or working in the private sector in that kind of marketing role that I have tried to take back and apply to my role at Active Surrey. And I reached a point in life where I felt that I wanted To apply my talents and experience to something that really mattered to me rather than encouraging people to drink more. So it was a sort of pivotal moment where I felt like I was actively making a choice to make a difference in what I did, and really was thoughtful about what that might look like and really thought about where my passions were and found the role in active Surrey and haven't really looked back since then. And, I believe firmly that movement matters to everyone, and that's a kind of fundamental belief of Active Surrey. We know that it is easier for some people to be active than others, and we are focused on the role that we can play in reducing inactivity, and through that, tackling inequalities and improving the lives for the residents of Surrey.

Alex: 19:02

So in my digging, I found this and I'm guessing your roles within Heineken and I've got here. Yes, the other one, the whiskey brand, the Chivas Brothers. So I've got written down. Is that where you've also become fluent in German? Have I got that correct?

Lil: 19:18

Yeah, no, so German was actually at university, so I studied history in German at at university. And I was very interested in German history and German literature. Yeah, I've got that geek side of me too. But yes, I haven't actually really used German since I left university. And I seem to have spent a lot of time in French places instead. So that would have been a much better place to start. A better choice for me, but yeah, who knows when you choose university, you think that you're kind of choosing a career path for life. And I think careers are like your relationship with movement. They can be long and windy journey sometimes before you find what you're really meant to do. So yes haven't, I wouldn't save German fluency as quite as much as it was back then, but yeah, I really enjoyed studying at university. And then, yeah, went in into marketing after that.

Alex: 20:06

When I saw it, I was like, Oh that's pretty cool. I was quite frustrated. I went to Berlin not that long ago and I did German in school and I thought, Oh, this will be fine. But then I just couldn't understand a word. So when I saw fluent in German, I was like, yeah, duolingo apps just don't really work for me. So I would love to pick that back up again.

Lil: 20:25

but yeah no, it's it's an interesting thing

Alex: 20:27

Very off piece, but I just thought that,

Lil: 20:29

very off piste.

Alex: 20:30

yeah, I love very off piste, but I love doing my digging because I saw your roles and the link says, I was like, I've got to ask because this is how people get to know you better as well, which is the aim of the podcast. So then we spoke jumping back into your marketing background. As you say, you've moved from brands that focus on alcohol to ones more on health and movement matters. Could you give people a bit more information about Active Surrey as a whole? What they focus on, what you're working on right now.

Lil: 21:00

Yeah, so Active Surrey is a fairly large active partnership. We have a team of about 36 people. we have a education team. And we focus on integrating, movement and physical activity into schools and creating opportunity for those who may not have had. I always say though, the people that never get that slip home from school to say that they've been selected for a team. They're the ones that Active Surrey focuses on. And through the school games, we create opportunity for them. And also work in that sort of more holistic way to support schools to take a physical activity led approach. We also have a community team. We coordinate the holiday activity and food programme on behalf of Surrey County Council. We also have a youth justice programme, which creates opportunity for those who were on the edges of of the criminal justice system and curates a programme of them into sport and also run some active, safe and fun spaces for people to be active in areas where there are higher levels of antisocial behavior. We have an active environments, a subsection within that does a lot of work around cycling. And and then we have a health team, which is really focused on how physical activity can be better embedded into our health pathways. At the moment they have been doing a lot of work with primary care to, to influence primary care and connect them better with leisure. And also been doing a lot more work around that link between mental and physical health.

Alex: 22:27

That's I'm going to give a personal shout out to your health team from my previous role at YMCA. I connected with them a lot and they were great. If I've got the name, hopefully I've got the name correct. Charlotte Long in the team. Yeah, she was fantastic. So plug to the health team.

Lil: 22:42

Lovely to hear. Shout out to Charlotte Long.

Alex: 22:45

Yeah. Yeah, really enjoyed working with your team there, whilst at the YMCA, it was trying to figure out what we could do in East Surrey and so much time for us, so appreciated that. So if now we've got an idea about yourself, your background, your relationship with physical activity, and hopefully the listeners understand you more as a person. So this next part is around understanding your beliefs for the root causes of inactivities. Of course, we're going to have Active Surrey in your mind and it's going to influence your answers or you've worked there for a while so influences your way of thinking, but this is to dig into your personal opinions now. So firstly, if you were going to map out the causes of inactivity, where does your thought process start?

Lil: 23:31

So I know that inactivity is so multifactorial and I also believe that a person's ability to be active, all of those multifactorial elements intersect in place. So I am a great believer in taking a kind of whole system place based approach, but layered on that. I'm also a great believer in the power of influencing children and young people. I've talked about my inherent understanding that I know that I will get enjoyment from movement, that I will find value in movement and meaning in movement. So that kind of physical literacy based approach. I believe that If you can create that understanding in young people, then you can build a relationship for life that will ebb and flow over time. But actually you have that inherent kind of inner core, which makes you understand that movement. matters for you. And you have a confidence that you can find ways to be active no matter where you are or what life throws at you. I think it's a sort of combination. It's not easy, is it? But it's a combination of, recognizing that all the influences around a young person, we often use that example of, can't just give someone a bike and expect them to ride. There are so many more elements to it. And tried to just recently did a talk at secondary school on children that were considering careers in sport. And that's exactly what I did. I showed a picture of a person, young person on a cycle path with her mom in the background and said, what needs to happen for this picture to be realized? And there are so many elements to it. You need the safe cycle roads. You need to have the ability to ride. You maybe need the role model in your life that's prepared to take you out and teach you to ride and take you to school. You need the inner determination to be able to want to do it. If the weather isn't great, you need still need to go out there and then you need the equipment to do it. And you can't just give one, one of those elements and then forget the rest. So I feel really strongly that it is that whole system approach. And it is that particular bias on children and young people.

Alex: 25:39

Yeah, that's the unfair thing I do in this podcast. I think we do start abroad and that's the part of which, which is easy. And the part which I like the listeners to be able to understand is where the thought process starts. So we've spoken around whole system approach, which is an amazing approach, which we can dig into the and previously like COM-B models and socioecological models. And then what I try to do is for people to understand you is that how do we narrow that down? And if there was one thing that we could focus on, and if one thing could contribute, and or one thing that you are most passionate about, what would that be? So hopefully we'll get to that as well. We're starting to obviously narrow down into CY, influencing CYP there. So for those who are listening to this podcast, and it's the first one they listen to, what is a whole systems approach?

Lil: 26:26

It's not just taking an element in isolation. It's thinking about that wider element around people. So what is holding the inactivity in place? And some of those can be addressed at a kind of community level. So it might be having a friend to go with you. It might be opening the park a little bit longer, recognizing the hours that people are working in that area. It's shift work, it might be more at a system level. So it might be the fact that the barriers to getting fit notes for someone that's been is waiting to be signed off for exercise from a doctor, or it might be something around in, in one of the places that we're working with the sport England place partnership that is, is currently being rolled out. We know that there's an amazing leisure center that's been built. But it's just across the other side of the huge reservoir and the people that live in that community can't get his two buses to get there. So for them, that's a massive barrier. So it's about sort of testing, learning about how we can break down some of these barriers and just create more opportunities for people to move. I think we all know that physical activity is being quite systematically written out of people's daily lives. It's it's massively accelerated with COVID. We know that people have done studies in the kind of circumference of freedom that young people have in their lives from the days when they used to roam to now where they've really very much confined to their own houses and inner neighborhoods. And really beginning to think through about how we, fitness has almost been something that we schedule into our lives rather than something that's just built into our lives. And we really need to kind of get that balance back about how it just is part of how we live our lives rather than, oh yeah, I've exercised at the gym for an hour, so I'm done for the day. That means I can, sit down and work all day at home on my computer and then sit down and watch TV at the end of the day. For me, There is sport and sport brings so much joy, but there is also that basic need for movement to be rebuilt back into our lives. And and that takes a whole system because it isn't just about one particular thing. It's about that kind of societal shift. And I often tell the story of when my son went on holiday to Holland, and he was looking over a village in the distance, and he said to someone, Oh, how long will it take to get there? And the guy said, Oh, it will be about 10 minutes by bike. And he was like, I've never heard distance measured in time it will take to cycle. But in Holland, cycling is so built into the DNA that they do say, Oh, it's X amount of time by bike. Whereas we don't get that here. We're, So many journeys are just made by car, just very short distances. And we really need to create that shift back again, that we are all responsible for moving more. Um, even we often tell people, even standing uses a hundred muscles. So standing desks making sure that you do stand up more regularly. It's all, it all contributes, it all matters.

Alex: 29:19

That's a great example about Holland. I think I've never really thought of it in that way. But yeah, I wouldn't, people just naturally do say, Oh, that's a five minute drive. When I know it's a 10 minute walk to the station, but I probably would say it's just like a two minute drive. So yeah, that's a really interesting, even in terms of mindsets. So we've got this whole system approach where you said it's multifaceted. There's so many aspects of a person's life, which we, which need to fall into place for someone to be able to have that. Perfect relationship with physical activity, and there's a lot of influences outside of their reach that and a lot of systemic things that need to happen as well. So if we were going to narrow it down and focus on a specific area today, you've mentioned the power of influencing children and young people. Is that where you would go where you would lead this conversation to next? Or what would you say? This is what I'm most passionate about. This is the area which I would like to focus on. If I was going to start my own business, this is where I would spend my time.

Lil: 30:18

So I think there's amazing work happening across the system and it really feels like there is a joined up cohesive strategic direction from, with uniting the movement and a partnership that's happening across wider sector partners to, to change the dial. where I think there is a further opportunity is, and I guess this comes back to my background in the private sector is thinking a little bit more using some of the tactics and strategies that are utilized by the private sector, or by influences to change behavior, because I don't think for any of us sitting here in our sector are the key influences of society. And I don't think that we are the ones that people are looking to for behavior change. So actually thinking about some of the kind of the sort of big data sets and the the tactics that are employed by large scale brands and also online influencers. I'm really thinking about how we can leverage them more actively in order to be able to to feel increasingly relevant and bring about that societal shift. And I've got some relationships with private companies who we've engaged with like vitality is an amazing example of they know that prevention works. They're not still having that conversation about, does is prevention worth investing in, which is a conversation we are still having, when budgets are so tight in the public sector. We're still having that conversation about is prevention. Can we afford prevention right now? And actually, they know that prevention yields returns for them. If they can make a population within using their services, be healthier and stronger than they're not reliant on their health insurance as much. And I think that's a really great example of how this actually can yield return on investment, but you have to be prepared to think differently and really dive into what is driving big societal trends. How many times when we all look at our Apple watches and it buzzes and says time to stand, does that kind of provoke something? And we need to be thinking about, what, who are our wider allies out there? That we can be partnering with on this journey. Cause I think what we're doing in our own sector is amazing right now. And it's about broadening that network of people and network of tactics that we think are going to be able to change the dial because this isn't easy, if it was easy, we wouldn't be having these conversations.

Alex: 32:35

I completely agree and I do feel we're quite behind with sport from a behavior change point of view, but also you slightly touching it there. From a digital point of view, we're still talking about and we're using good examples like I spoke to just spoke with Mel Bound and their digital community and that seems like it's a revolution in us in our sector, but really, that's just a forum that's been utilized to change behavior, which people would have been doing 10, 15 years ago.

Lil: 33:05

Yeah.

Alex: 33:06

but not trying to belittle Mel's work, but it's so new to our sector. And that's why it worked because it's proven in others.

Lil: 33:12

Yeah.

Alex: 33:13

in terms of how could you then introduce that into your current role and within Active Surrey, what does it, how does, what does this look like now? We would say, okay, yes, we're going to take expertise from the private sector and behavior change. And because we're behind, like, how do we take those. Those first those next steps into doing that.

Lil: 33:34

So for us at the moment, it is about finding those allies that are supportive of us. I think all of these things take big budgets, but there are some, smaller elements that we can take. In order to be able to start moving forward with this if it were easy, I'd be doing it already. But yeah, we are building up that network of allies and beginning to think differently about how we can work. so if there's anyone listening that wants to engage over this but those kind of, communities out there that are, um, they've built up the marketing skills in order to sell their products, but actually they have a kind of CSR value that they're prepared to share some of that for community good. I think there were some really exciting opportunities that we could have that just begin to nudge those behavior changes a little bit more than they are right now. And we see that in our everyday lives. Every time you put something in the basket and you get a reminder to go back and buy it, They're the kind of tactics we need to be deploying to understand our populations better and to be able to support them into the kind of activity that they want.

Alex: 34:38

I think it's, yeah really interesting. And the one I go back to add to on the podcast at the start, because I think he's on your board as well. I think Born Barikor and Our Parks because he fully understands this and he's, that's, and he's working with amazing brands as well. Lucozade, vitality, and this is himself where he's gone. He understands his audience, understands the private sector and the influences that it can have. And he's just approached him and he was a one person band to start, but he had all of these huge connections because he understood the importance of growing a community and that's why the couch to fitness, which Sport England funded was so successful and engaging a diverse audiences because it looks fun. It looked cool and it was accessible in a way which didn't feel like we were pushing activity on to people.

Lil: 35:24

Yeah, absolutely. So I think two things in what he does so well, building a community and the power of digital. And he said to me, if it's not online, it never happened. And that's his mantra is very much to create that sense of digital presence and but also combined with a very real community feel on the ground when you're present at one of his classes or activities.

Alex: 35:46

So we've started with a whole systems approach and then we've gone into how we can utilize the private sector expertise that is a completely new angle, which I really appreciate. We're really broadening out this map, which is fantastic.

Lil: 36:01

They are part of our system, aren't they? And they are probably part of the system, which at the moment isn't being as drawn in as it could be.

Alex: 36:09

I completely agree. I think we're we're so siloed as a sector and we try to learn from each other. And we're starting to, especially within health, especially in health, learning from the health sector and understanding how we can create the links and learn from them. It seems like you're also, your angle here is around the potential like investment and opportunities that we can get through working with the private sector. Is that something which you're also conscious of, or is it more of what, just what learnings we can take from them?

Lil: 36:38

Think for me, it's less about investment into us and more about how we can partner. And I think in terms of data, private companies have been working with big data for a long time. And I don't think we are doing that yet. We're not curating Participant journeys and re engaging as effectively as we could be. And I think that there is probably some partnerships that we could explore in that space. Certainly at a kind of local level, we're keen to explore that to be able to better understand and re keep the engagement going with people so that they can kind of know what's out there and know how to dive in, find support. It's I know these things are fraught with challenges, but think that's where partnership and expertise comes in that we can draw from.

Alex: 37:23

Yeah, I try not to bash Sport England in every single podcast I do because I work for them and also I've always aimed to work for them, but the culture I feel Sport England created previously before uniting the movement was one where data was so precious to each individual organization that the thought of sharing that with at that time would be a competitor for maybe they felt it or not but this was how I felt looking in for a national governing body going why would we share Our data with that sport, because we need this for, to get funding.

Lil: 37:56

Yeah.

Alex: 37:57

the concept of having a data set for across the whole sector, where we knew who was doing what sport, where everyone is, their attitudes and how that could be shared across everyone so that we could use that to work with amazing organizations outside of our sector. That just would have been, we would have been so far away from that about three, Two and a half, three years ago, so get it, hopefully over this next strategy by the end of it, at least in seven years time, we're in a place where we might even be in a better position data wise to be able to say, no, we are all part of this system and we can connect.

Lil: 38:36

Yeah. And I know what I said is fraught with challenges, and it's almost every meeting I go into with health partners. They are saying that's one of the biggest things that is holding them back. But you There are ways through and it's just about having that kind of northern star, I suppose, that this is what we want to get to, and this is the benefits that it can yield.

Alex: 38:57

Yeah, completely agree. So one part I do want to touch on because this is our main section, but I really wanted to find out some more information about But your points around the power of influencing children and young people in a physical literacy approach. I think what how did that, why did that come to mind? What, why did that play a role in your thinking?

Lil: 39:16

So I've been close to the the work shout out to Charlie Crane, actually, who's led the great physical literacy work from,

Alex: 39:22

She does listen. She's messing with me. So she listens to them all. So yes, she will hear that.

Lil: 39:28

So I stayed close to the work that has happened in physical literacy, and I think that it really does sum up the key ingredients that create a lifelong relationship with movement. I think that it's too easy to go straight into the role of schools in that. I think there are so many other elements that sit alongside that. I think the family is critical. I think the environment in which a young person lives is also critical. I think the community opportunities for them are also critical. I mean, we know that our least active, often come from areas of lower socioeconomic status or from ethnically diverse communities or people with long term health conditions and disabilities. They are statistically most likely to be inactive. And so therefore thinking about those wider elements in a place based approach and thinking from the lens of a child, how we can begin to not just upskill in the school and not just to focus on PE teachers even, but begin to think more holistically about the environment in which a child lives and moves and how we might start to to influence some of those leavers to make it easier to be active. So I think active environments is a really interesting space for children, thinking about that built environment and how they might use it and how we might make it easier to cycle and I think it's really important for thinking about where those road crossings are, just to make or unlock some of those barriers that so often you hear people say it's not safe for my child to be active. So thinking about that as a starting point and kind of building out from that.

Alex: 41:04

That's really interesting. I really liked the lens of the statement of thinking from the lens of a child. I've mentioned this quite a bit, but my, work up until recently has been on the campaign Play Their Way, and that's been so closely linked with the physical literacy piece. They have been sitting siloed where physical literature seemed like a very academic piece initially, and then Play Their Way seemed like a campaign piece, and we're now doing a huge piece of work to say no, both of these are around positive experiences for children, young people, and how we can increase the number of positive experiences. And both of these pieces are doing that exact same thing, thinking from the lens of a child. Play Their Way through trying to introduce rights into coaching, but physical literacy more, how can we affect policy or influence decision makers or those practitioners to be able to deliver activities in a slightly different way and understanding. It's really interesting time now at Sport England that we're trying to just push these bits together and think from these different lenses, like you're saying, not just from a, from Sport England's point of view of how can we get more people active.

Lil: 42:08

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think Play Their Way is a great initiative because, I've been there with my own children. You have so many children. You have some children that want to be in a club environment because they are really ambitious for their future, and they want to be really competitive and push hard. And you have some children in the same club who are there because their friends are there, and they have fun, and the sport is almost secondary. And you have to, create an environment that's inclusive of both of those and that is really challenging. But having that kind of child led mindset is, I think is so critical to creating the positive experience will sustain the participation longer.

Alex: 42:48

I think we'll stop there, which is an amazing place to finish and an amazing finishing statement. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really do appreciate that.

Lil: 42:57

No problem. Really nice to be here.