Alex: 0:37

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Working it Out podcast. I'm here today with the CEO of Play England, Eugene Minogue. Welcome to the Working it Out community, Eugene.

Eugene: 0:48

Ah, thanks for having me. Much appreciated.

Alex: 0:50

No worries at all. So we're going to jump straight into the first question as I do, and we've got a Working it Out locker. So what we ask is that one person from each one of our guests induct one item into our locker. We've had some crazy ones in the past, and I'm really excited to hear what you've got.

Eugene: 1:08

Want to put something in the locker?

Alex: 1:10

Yes, please.

Eugene: 1:11

Such as physical item? Something to

Alex: 1:13

To do with your relationship with physical activity. Sorry. So in the past, we've had things that might see current CEO, Tim Hollingsworth has put in his rowing machine, but I just released one recently with Joe Pavey and she did her compression socks. And another example, Virginia Anderson, one that will be released just before this one. She did a handkerchief that she has to bring out on every single one of her runs.

Eugene: 1:36

Mine's sat on my desk. My trusty AirPods.

Alex: 1:39

Airpods. Lovely.

Eugene: 1:41

anywhere without those. Particularly when I'm walking. So I do an awful lot of walking. So catch up on the podcast and audiobooks. Keeps me distracted whilst I'm out on my walking.

Alex: 1:51

That's amazing. So is that your main source of activity then? Do you like getting out walking and chucking their headphones in, et cetera?

Eugene: 1:59

Yeah, pretty much. I do HIIT training. So I do that most days, but yeah, definitely walking is my main activity. I usually do somewhere between six and sort of 12 miles a day. So out sometimes with a dog, most of the time on my own, just to switch off compartmentalize a day catch up on, news but also just to listen to books as well. Cause I don't get as much time to read unless I'm on holiday. So yeah, listening to audio books is a nice way to, to switch off whilst getting my steps in.

Alex: 2:26

Amazing. So what I do is I normally like to try and dig into my guests, see what I can find through LinkedIn or X or, whatever platforms I can find and It's really interesting because I go into X and then I'll go into media and scroll right through right to the beginning to see What we'll see what people do and it does look like you're outdoors all the time with your family is that a regular thing that you like to do with your family as well?

Eugene: 2:49

Yeah, we're pretty active family. So the youngest she's a high performing gymnast as well, but she's also got a hidden disability. She's got rare metabolic disease. So juggling the two can be challenging. middle child he's 14 now but that's life saving. So it does that a couple of times a week, bit of cricket when the season's on and stuff. Yeah. And then eldest sort of not so sporty, if we like much more academic, she's off to university later this month as well.

Alex: 3:17

Amazing

Eugene: 3:18

time we're out walking, doing things with as a family. And we've got a dog as well. So it keeps us busy and active doing stuff, but yeah, very active individually, but also collectively as a family. We like to do family walks enjoy time outdoors and we're fortunate enough to live in the Derbyshire countryside, so we've got a great country park very close to our home, so we enjoy that quite a lot as well as well as doing active stuff on holidays when we get some time together.

Alex: 3:41

Going back to your item your airpods and you say you like to listen to books. What kind of books for you into, because I, is it more academic or are these, is this a, something to help you escape the world of academia and work?

Eugene: 3:54

It's a bit of both. I'm not really into fiction, to be honest for me, a lot of the stuff that I do, is stuff that's related to work. So I read a lot around children's play and activities around active travel is one of, something that's very close to my heart with that. And then things in and around that as well quite a bit around the changing digital landscape, the impact that's having on children in general. and young people as well. And then audio books it's mainly reference sort of stuff at the moment. So I'm listening to Atomic Habits at the moment and I've got Mo Gawdat's Unstressable next on the list. Yeah, listening to all sorts really. And then podcasts I'm a bit into my politics and a bit of a I'm a politic geek having

Alex: 4:29

Nice.

Eugene: 4:29

local government all of my career, I do keep my ear close to the ground on that. So some of the sort of high level sort of stuff with things like the rest is politics, electoral dysfunction, but then also some of the more nerdier sort of stuff, if you like, so the LGC podcast and also the truth about local government as well. And then others in and around the sport and physical activity sort of sector, conveners podcast and stuff like that as well, obviously play their way and Working it Out. Yeah. Yeah,

Alex: 4:55

Amazing little plug there. Thank you. Yeah. And play their way. If you haven't listed yet, this, it was a full time day job at Sport England up until recently moving into the This Girl Can team. So if you haven't listened to that podcast, Eugene's on there. Give that one a listen. It's amazing. It also talks further into play. We're going to cover it today, of course, but we link it more specifically to the Play Their Way campaign. So the part which I picked up on is because it heavily links to, to your relationship with activity. You said around active travel. I've got a few punch words from my research. It was like you're a parkour enthusiast. I don't think even that does it justice in terms of your relationship with parkour. Can you give people the history of it?

Eugene: 5:35

Oh, blimey. Where to start. Yeah, it, the short abridged version is basically I saw parkour on tv many moons ago. On channel four. There was two seminal documentaries. Jump London, Jump Britain. It really inspired me as a sports development officer at the time. And it allows me to challenge an awful lot of conventions around that, particularly the No Ball Games culture. And it allowed me to articulate some of the frustrations but also the restrictions that young people grow up under these days, whether it's no ballgames or you need a place to be active, pitch a court or wicket, track, field. That wasn't how I grew up. How I grew up, I could freely play outside. I could ride my BMX. We could play football in the street and the other bits. Next thing no ball game signs and other bits were coming up. So when I saw parkour, it sort of, one for better phrase, allowed me to stick two fingers up to the establishment and go. I don't need a place. I just need a pair of trainers in my imagination. And that's where the battle began with that around perceived health and safety, insurance, risk assessments, all of this sort of stuff so then we developed a documentary at the time when I was working at Westminster City Council showcasing the actual benefits of parkour and what parkour actually was, as opposed to the spectacle of parkour, which was on Jump London and Jump Britain. So you had some of the founders jumping across iconic landmarks across Britain and London really. And that was when you get to that very point, that was the elite end of parkour. But underlying parkour was a very deep philosophy practice and understanding around your connection as a human being to your environment. And really, that's what we wanted to showcase. So we created a documentary called Jump Westminster, which dispelled all the myths around parkour and really, it was around reminding not just adults, but particularly children, you've got an obligation to play. We all instinctively run, jump, climb, crawl, swing as Children but unfortunately, society got to the point where it was like, get down from there. That's dangerous. No ball game signs. You need to go to a sports club and you need a qualified coach. And parkour really got back to what, not just what childhood was about, but really articulating the importance of physical literacy. People to interact to be part of environment, really. Yeah, it was a long old slog, 10 years they're taking it all through that process, establishing the national governing body. So Parkour UK, the long fight for recognition which we got in the end. And then when we did get it, we had an encroachment issue from the International Gymnastics Federation who all of a sudden wanted to claim parour, so I had to set up the International Federation and fend, that off and make sure the integrity and authenticity of parkour was protected really. And it was around challenging some norms within the sports space, really. What is a governing body? Why is it a membership model. Why was participation going down in traditional sports? And I argued for a long time participation in sport physical activity was not going down. People were just doing things in different ways. Parkour was one element of that. And for many years, skateboarding wasn't even recognized in the UK, there was an awful lot of urban sports coming through slacklining, the type of run clubs that were being set up, run dem crews, a prime example. What Spartan fam was doing with calisthenics back in 2012 and others, people were just doing things in different ways and different social models because it was grown up with social media at the time. So there was a huge change at the time, but the sporting bodies took a long time to even understand, let alone, recognize that. So it was a tough journey, but I learnt a lot and I hope the contribution that I made will last a significant period of time. Certainly outlive me and my reputation on X or Google or whatever you can find on online now.

Alex: 9:17

I think And unfortunately, I think it will outlive you in the nicest way possible. And I hope it will. It's so exciting. And the part which you, there's so many words there, which I'm pulling out in terms of the next part around the emotions you'll use to describe your relationship with physical activity. Cause I've got around, I've got, I've just listening to things around like connection to environment, like an obligation to play that if, in terms of when it comes to physical activity for you. What emotions, one word comes to mind.

Eugene: 9:47

Physical activity and sport are fundamentally different things for me. With that same with exercise, they conjure up different emotions and understandings of what we do. I think for a long time there was a rigidness particularly around sport and a misunderstanding of what physical activity was. And arguably way that we've constructed the world, particularly over the last 30 to 40 years has marginalized not just physical activity, but play. And there's been a direct sort of impact in terms of children and young people who have got physical mental health problems. But also, as you've seen with things like the Olympic movement is now recognizing, there's different ways of doing stuff, whether it's, bringing three, three or three basketball, that was a street game or a street version of a very traditional game that was introduced. The same with braking, parkour is no different, ninja courses or obstacle course racing, whatever you want to call it, calisthenics. These are all new ways of people moving. Some of these are due to the restrictions that we grew up when we spoke about parkour. So children, young people frustrated because they had to go to a place to do something. Whereas certainly my generation, we had much more freedom to play and be physically active, climbing trees. As an example, a basic right of passage for the Children is all but lost, nowadays, and that's something that we need to get back to. And also that the misperceptions around risk, that we must eliminate risk. We must manage risk, but the only way you can manage it is to engage with it and understand that there is benefits in risk as well. And these important to children and young people but also people's understanding around physical activity and movement. There's a quote that I often use, and I'm probably gonna misquote it. It's an old Churchillian quote, which is the farther you look back, the farther forward you can see. what I mean by that is a lot of the stuff that we're trying to get back to as a society, we had. So people used to walk a lot more. It was natural physical activity that people would do as part of their day. You didn't have to structure it in with it all. Going to the shops or carrying your shopping to and from the shops with it all. We don't have those things anymore. We've made life so convenient that we've compartmentalized and over sportized, in my view, a lot of stuff and particularly for children. Children and young people. And I think we do need to change that. We need to make some fundamentally different decisions than we have over many years. And certainly seeing that in the active travel sort of sector around now around challenging some of the inherent dominance of the car and our planning systems around how we design and build the urban environment how that's focused on vehicle movement and not people movement in terms of that. And arguably if you look back, certainly pre 80s the environment was much more conducive to human movement. With that, and you look at what the Victorians done around the, or what's now referred to as a luxurious public realm with it all, the benches that they put in, the lamppost, the parks and open spaces that they built and the highways it was built around people and movement people, really. So I think there's some lessons for us to learn. But at the same time, a lot of the answers are already out there. Already there. And we need to just brave and be bold with what we do and be open to new ways of embracing stuff. Some of the stuff that I spoke about with Park and why Park came around was to do with the restrictions that young people are grown up. but equally we're in a new digital. Age now and digital isn't necessarily a prohibitive sort of factor to physical activity. And one of the things that I always hop on around is digital activity where digital can enable the physical activity. And we saw that through COVID really how it can transform some stuff. So I think we need to lean into that, the same time, we need to get back to some of the basics. To what we used to have societally.

Alex: 13:30

I've I've made a lot of notes there. I'm trying to, what I try to do with my guests is get them to narrow down to one word that describes their emotions in terms of how their long term relationship with physical activity. And I've got a few things noted down here. I like the idea of just the word physical activity is one that I'm going to steal from yourself. And so thank you for that, because that's incredible. I've also got around bravery, rigidness. In terms of how you feel your personal relationship with physical activity, what one word would you use?

Eugene: 14:07

I think for me it's around It's a relationship. There's different points in my life where I've absolutely detested exercise or sport or other bits and pieces and physical activity to a certain extent. Find an awful lot of joy in it. Relaxation, particularly for my mental health, but also my physical health. So it allows me to switch off and compartmentalize stuff. But also it's. You need to shape new habits around stuff. And I think a lot of that is around what we do as a society how society is built, I find it incredibly frustrating walking around places now because I spot things both because of my work and also because I'm an avid sort of walker and I choose that as my default mode of transport, so it's the, it's frustrating when you see roadwork signs. On the pavement in the pedestrian, we're taking even more space away from people and giving more space to cars vehicles. Small things like that, that, that really frustrate you. And then you understand why subconsciously people have stopped moving or stopped natural physical activity, because we're designing it out all the time, or we squeeze it to the margins with it all. And that's us as adults. That's before you even viewed a world through the lens of a child. Okay. And then it can be quite scary. There's a really good course run by the London School of Economics called Urban 95. And it's around how you see the world for the average height of a three year old. And it is terrifying. The middle of a city and trucks trundling past and the noise and, just the city landscape. It can be. And those habits are formed very early. And these are things that we need to consider, particularly for our future generations.

Alex: 15:45

Again, a few bits there, which I'm going to dig into in the second half in terms of around how we're going to tackle in activity and how you would map it. The last part of this section is around your earliest memory. You've just said there around how children and their view of the world. What was physical activity like for you growing up? What was it? Do you have a certain amount? Do you have an early memory, like your earliest memory?

Eugene: 16:11

Yeah, it well, there's two vivid ones for me. I suppose the earliest one for me. So I'm an eighties baby. So it gives you a bit of context. And I was fortunate enough to be one of the last or our generation, the last to play out quite freely compared to our current generations of children. My mom used to say, right off you go, don't come back to the street lights on and we'd go out and play any other bits and pieces. And I remember the most vivid memory for me was getting my. my rally burner and my BMX and

Alex: 16:39

Rally. Yeah.

Eugene: 16:40

transformed my free range of movement. So I went from how far I could walk with my friends or stuff that you was prepared to carry to exploring different communities, spaces and places going down the canal, going to the graveyard, going to different housing estates. It was just transformative. and it was also a social social cue as well. How you knew where people were. It was a pile of bikes outside somebody's house. That's where you knew where your were in terms of that. And then, customizing that and doing all the bits, and then, doing things that we, nowadays, you'd probably be frowned upon, but setting up ramps in the street and, going on to car parks and garages and doing jumps and tricks and other bits and pieces. And that's, it's contextual to what he was growing up, but that bike was transformative for me as a young person, it really opened my eyes to world and the community around me and encouraged me to do and facilitate me to do more. I ended up I remember after the summer, after I got my, the bike for my birthday, I ended up cycling to school independently that, which was great, really. I didn't have to even have to lock it up. I just bought a bike and put it in a bike rack at school and it was fine. And that lasted all the way through to secondary school and really instilled in me the ability to be able to travel independently. At 11, I was to a secondary school two boroughs away walking partway and then getting a bus. The other end of the

Alex: 17:59

Mm-Hmm. That's ex I resonate with quite a lot of that, to be fair. That was a I share some of the same memories and it's really interesting doing, doing a series of those who no ball games comes up so all the time saying that we just don't live in that world anymore. And I do come, I just crept in to, the nineties, but just on the wrong side of that. But I'd had the same relationship. But you knew where your friends were'cause all the bikes were outside. You played football in the street for. He did all those things, and I remember you brought like great memories of the first time I was allowed to cycle from our road and leave our road and be able to go to Richmond Park in London. It was like, like that was huge and that the Richmond Park was the world tour. It was a huge moment in our lives, and then we started allowed to be cycle, like you say, like cycling to school using your scooter or that kind of thing. So yeah, it, it really has changed because e even now it just doesn't feel safe to do

Eugene: 18:53

yeah, and this goes back to how we've we as adults design and build prioritize up our public realm around the vehicle. It's a very over simplistic sort of explanation of that. When new housing developments have done, they're more concerned. Can they get a refuse collection vehicle and out of a building? An estate. Then if they are, if there's space for Children, young people to play and be the active that's fundamentally wrong. That's something that we've got to, got to change. Certainly when I was growing up, we was lucky if we had a car and extended family, let alone in a household. Now you've got two or three. The amount of space that was taken over for is huge. With that I'm not anti car by any stretch of the imagination, but it needs to be a redressing of that balance of prioritization of people really. And if we get the public realm often. people will naturally move and travel in a way that is more physically active which is far better for them and for us as a society as well.

Alex: 19:49

Yeah, you're jogging so many memories for me because it was, during the school holidays, my road was a lot quieter and the only car that would go down there was the ice cream van, and that was a great moment as well. We'd all be running down the middle of the road following it, so that's a great, yeah, you're jogging a lot of great memories for me. Okay, we're now starting to transition into the second half, which is around mapping and activity. But before we do that, I feel like we've got to know you a bit better now, but if you could provide an overview of your role, your organization and its obvious link to physical activity, please.

Eugene: 20:26

Yeah at Play England at the moment, so we are the national charity that sort of advocates for the child's rights and freedom to play with that in all settings. Obviously active play is a huge part of that, but it's not the only element of play. There's the cultural aspects, there's the arts. There's the intrinsic value of play, it's itself. And we know how vital play is for children and young people. We need to protect that with that. A lot of people don't know that the UK is a signatory to the UNCRC or the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Children. Child unfortunately hasn't been enshrined in domestic law. It has in Scotland recently this year but not yet in England. So this would be something we'd be absolutely keen. But that, if people haven't seen the UNCRC, I'd encourage people to go read it. Particularly, but not exclusively, Article 31, which is around the child's right to play, leisure and recreation. Really, and that's fundamental right of the child, really. But a lot of stuff that we do policy wise is around advocating for changes in legislation. And one of the things that we're calling for at the moment is for the introduction of play sufficiency legislation to make sure young people, and families have fun. Sufficient time, space, opportunity, spaces and places to play freely in various sort of different settings. And to give you a sort of an anecdote on that there is only one reference to children within the National Planning Policy Framework. And also by contrast, there's statutory protections within the National Planning Policy Framework for and newts, but we don't have any protections for children. Also, as a direct example for those that are working in sport physical activity, there are protections within the National Planning Policy Framework to make sure we have enough athletics tracks, football pitches, courts, cricket wickets, leisure centres, pools and sports halls are all protected in that. Sport England are the statutory consultee that makes sure that we have those provisions in place various sort of local authorities in England. Unfortunately, there's no statutory protections or requirements for children's play playgrounds, skate parks, multi use games areas but also more broadly. baking children's play into the wider fabric of the urban landscape as well. So roads and streets give it, making sure children and young people got time and space and opportunity to play on their doorstep. And then there's wider sort of elements as well that we campaign for. Or we work on as well. So workforce, making sure there's sufficient play provision. we're losing adventure playgrounds all over England. At the moment they're vitally important. Not just for children, young people, but for our communities as well and making sure we've got the right workforce out there to deliver play and play provision with that, and again, to give you another direct example, certainly when I was growing up as a kid, you'd go off to a play scheme over, over the summer or. the holiday times, or when you finish up school, you're going to a play club. things like that is, is dominated by sport. There, the sportization has crept in there. Now, this isn't an either or, it's an and. So play needs to come back into that mix. So that it's part of the school day is part of the community sort of fabric life and making sure it's part of wider schemes as well. Governmental schemes like the holiday activities and food program as well. So these are things that we campaigned for. There's lots of stuff on our website. So encourage people to go and have a look particularly our 2024 manifesto as well.

Alex: 23:42

So when I post this, what I'll do is if everyone heads over to LinkedIn, I always tag in the organization and share some links to how you can access more information. So I'll do that there. We're now flowing into, and we covered quite a bit in terms of policy. So for yourself, if this is, we're now we're starting to talk around, I'm building a map of tackling inactivity based on our sector leaders, like yourselves your personal opinions. And of course your organization and your experiences are going to influence your thinking. So I'm interested to know from yourself initially, if you were going to map out the causes of inactivity. Where would you start? Where did you, where did your head initially go? You had to have a blank page.

Eugene: 24:31

Order causes. Oh God. They're many and multifaceted. I think a lot of it is to do with how we built. The urban, not just the urban environment, but certainly our planning system for me is and foremost front and center with that as well. So we need to tackle planning reforms to make sure that inactivity is in there. So as an example, Active Travel England was only set up two and a bit years ago. It's recently received statutory consultee status in a similar fashion to what Sport England's had for many years. But the statutory consultee status only kicked in At developments of certain sizes like I've outlined earlier, we don't have any protections in there for and young people and the built environment particularly their opportunities and spaces and places to play. so I think a lot of it is to do with the public, not just the public realm because the public realm then informs our norms. This was one of the big things that I was challenging at parkour. People said to me, what's your goal with parkour? And I said I want to make it a social norm. And I said what do you mean? I said if you're walking down a high street and someone jogs past you or someone cycles past you, don't even blink. You don't even notice it most of the time because it's an inherent social norm. It's a normal activity for people to do. However, in the early days of parkour, if someone was doing that in and around your line of sight it would polarize people. So people either show intrigue or people go, no, that's dangerous. That's illegal. You shouldn't be doing that. And if I articulate, that's where we've got to with play unfortunately, whereby we view it that it is this activity that children shouldn't be doing or should only be doing in a place, i. e. a playground. And we need to re socially norm, play physical activity and prioritize those activities and those movements to make sure that we can facilitate, enable and support and permit those activities. It's still farcical that in this day and age, we have no ball game signs being put up or all over those signs have no legal status whatsoever. But basically what they say is, no children, no activity here. Then we struggled to understand why children and young people don't want to play or participate in sport or physical activity because it's been socially ingrained in them an early, very early stage that you're not welcome here. You shouldn't be doing that. And these are things that we need to fundamentally address challenge. Plus, we've lost an awful lot of facilities that we used to use. Certainly me as a kid, I used to enjoy going out to Rice Slip Lido. That was a day out for me. In terms of doing that, we don't have Lido's or outdoor splash pads or swim pools, certainly in the way that we used to. The facilities that we do build now for children and young people are not challenging enough, stimulating enough for children in the current context in what we do, there's some issues that we need to address around inclusivity and accessibility that is getting better, but there's still a long way to go, particularly when it comes to those with disabilities both physical disabilities, but also hidden disabilities as well. I've got two children with. Hidden disability. So know that from a personal lived perspective as well. But also inclusivity as well. We're not doing enough young women and girls around play spaces to make sure that they meet the needs of those girls and women and making sure that we design those from their perspective as opposed to the default boy perspective. So we've got lots to do on that front, but I think working with wider sector partners but more importantly, we've got to change the societal norms play, physical activity, leisure, sport, exercise, whatever you Want to call it really. So there there's a long way for us to go, but in terms of the sort of causes of it all we've done this, we've built the system in this way, and I'm part of that. I'm one of the adults. I might be one of the. in the system. And it's incumbent on all of us to do more, do better challenge conventional thinking and really challenged that I was watching a a great documentary, it's only a short 120 minutes called carspiracy, which talks about the dominance of the car and, how that's changed our urban environment as well. It really brings these things home in front of the center and a lot of things I've been advocating for many years with various sort of hats on.

Alex: 28:32

So what I tried to do, which is a very unfair I've been told that a lot because I think it makes it, it gives it an interesting twist to try to narrow people down to what one thing could you, would you focus on? Would you focus your energy on? And I know obviously you're. You're talking play, but we've covered planning systems and how play should be involved in the protection of CYP, CYP, children, young people always do that shouldn't just abbreviate for the sake of it. Children, young people in our planning systems. We've also spoke about re socializing and re prioritizing play everywhere. And then another point around a loss of facilities. So there's a few really interesting points which all are going to be added to the map. But you've also said around we need more disruptors in the system. Is disruptors in the system how you see those things being achieved, or is it, do you need more people like Eugene to be out there speaking, or, and what one of those things would you prioritize, or would you spend your time focusing on?

Eugene: 29:33

Yeah, do we need more disruptors? Yes, absolutely. There's a quote. I don't know who it was by, but if everybody's thinking the same, then nobody's thinking with that. And then us as a sector, we're guilty of talking a good game but not doing a good game. A lot of the time, one of my big frustrations I've been working in this for well over 30 years now. Can we just get on and do something? I've been running the no ball gains campaign KNOW ball gains for 13, 14 years since 2011. Can we just get those signs taken down? We just need a piece of legislation. They shouldn't even be up anyway in the first place, but this comes back to political leadership. We need some real bold common sense leadership just to get the basics done. But these small shifts would have a huge impact societally. And I think that's it. If there's, if I could distill it down to one thing, I think we need government, and this is going to sound strange, government to go permit people to do stuff. And we had that during lockdown. It was the first time ever in my lifetime, you had governmental officials, albeit the language wasn't great, go and do your daily exercise. It was the first time ever you had a coherent, consistent message. Go do this, go do something for your health and not just for you, but for others as well. So we need that political leadership and that permission bit is key to be able to do it. And whether that's through the planning system, whether it's, the big things of changing the national planning policy framework, introducing play sufficiency legislation, or whether it's a small thing of getting those noble game signs taken down, it needs to be, it's not an either or, it's an and. We need to do as much and as little as we can all of the time and challenge that conventional thinking with it or and arguably young people have got a lot of the answers, but we just don't ask them. And when we don't really value what they say.

Alex: 31:21

I think we've, and the part that's come up previously is around a, fragmented relationship. I'm just looking at my other screen where I've got my map and a fragmented relationship across government, whether that be DCMS, DFE, DFH, whoever it may be, and then that's causing a potential issue. In terms of people's relationship with physical activity, because different priorities, different ways of working and where does play, physical activity movement sport, where does that fit into wider agendas. And it seems like here, you're saying the same thing, like there's not one, one way to fix this, we need to somehow from a, policy level from a government level have play and activity ingrained within everything.

Eugene: 32:08

Yeah, absolutely. The irony was I was having conversations with colleagues in Denmark the week before last, and they said to me, Oh, it's really interesting what you're doing around play sufficiency and, calling for legislation. And they said, Oh, maybe it's something we should look at. And I said, why? And I said do we not need it? I said you probably don't. I said, because societally and politically, you're light years ahead of where we are. The whole ethos of play and physical activity is baked into their culture. It's there. Therefore they don't need it. I've said on other podcasts as well, me calling or Play England calling for play sufficiency legislation is damning in its own right, damning to where we've got to societally but also shameful that we're asking for legislation to protect the child's right to play that surely in itself is a reflection of how far we've come down the rabbit holes as a society We shouldn't need legislation culturally, this should be part of who we are as a society. And a lot of countries have got that but don't realize they've got it. Will legislation help with that. Yes, it will but ultimately, legislation is the bare minimum. That's something you have to do, not what you should do. And that's where people should go out and get, give you a prime example, Leeds city council would do some sterling work on play sufficiency legislation. There's no legislation for it in England, but they've gone and done it. Because they've chosen to. Politically, it's got huge support there, but more importantly, they know it is the right thing to do for the Children, young people in the city of Leeds and they've chosen to do it. And there's other local authorities that doing similar type work in and around that, Sandwell, Luton doing some good work. Cambridge have just done a review of their play facilities as well. So they're doing that in the absence of legislation, minimum standards for people to meet and then build out from, that's where we're at. We're going to have this hit and miss sort of situation. We need to get out of our silos. of, in terms of what we're doing. And for me, I think we need to sort of work hand in glove with various different partners and people who have different perspectives what we do. And I think that's where the richness could come in and also I think we need to do more and listen more to children and young people.

Alex: 34:24

So that's a really interesting piece. And we're trying to do that across the work I'm involved in at Sport England on a number of different projects now. And it did actually amaze me before, before starting at Sport England, there was no kind of youth voice infrastructure, even within Sport England itself, but it was something that we advocated organizations in the sector did. So I'm really glad we're doing that now. So how can an organization start implementing the young person's voice within their work?

Eugene: 34:50

Absolutely. I've encouraged people to go and look at the Lundy model. It's pretty straightforward. It gives you some real practical advice of how you can do that in a meaningful way. Often what we do is as adults is trivialize Children and young people as opposed to genuinely listen to them. They are people and more importantly, there are future generations so we should listen to them. They're the ones that are going to be in our position in a generations time. So we need to listen to our future generations and importantly act on, on what they're telling us.

Alex: 35:20

I think we're going to wrap it up there. Thank you so much for joining me today, Eugene. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and if you've enjoyed this as well and have any thoughts, if you agree with what Eugene has said, yeah, this is what we should focus on. I completely agree. Do comment on LinkedIn, let us know, or if you disagree completely say no, we shouldn't focus on play, we should be focusing on X. We also want to hear, because I'm sure, as I say with all of our guests, I'm sure Eugene will be up for the debate.

Eugene: 35:49

Absolutely. And I challenge anybody that, disagrees with a statement that it all starts with play. You've only got to remember your own childhood and, how many memories have jogged in you today through the conversation with that. And, that's what we need to get back to. We must remember that we are. former children with that. And we, we all had different experiences as grown up. But one, one key thread that cuts through all of that is play. As children we all played.