This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2012at 12:14 pm by anadmin

What is Rising Stars?

Youngsters are often given a very unfair bad press, but they’re just great, aren’t they? Smaller, more energetic forms of human life, containing oodles of untapped potential waiting to be unleashed on the world as they grow and mature.

Sport is a domain where this particularly rings true. And without the efforts of their senior generations to facilitate and guide the athletic progression of kids and teenagers, it’s a given that your favourite football team will lack a star striker in the future, England will be unable to field an opening batsman capable of smashing centuries against Australia in the Ashes, and Team GB will find that they will rapidly drop down the Olympic medal table. Not things that we can bear thinking about, really.

As such, if a young athlete is recognised as having the potential to accomplish great sporting achievements in the future, it is wrong that nothing is done to help them overcome any problems that they might face in honing their talents and realising their ambitions. And that’s where Active Nation’s Rising Stars scheme comes in.

Rising Stars aims to provide practical support to assist talented young sports people in their respective quests to fulfil their potential, and help alleviate any factors that are stifling their progress. We look to identify those young individuals who have already reached a particularly talented level within the context of their chosen sports and help them to progress further in whatever way we can. This might be through the provision of pathways into suitable clubs, courses or programmes, or through the provision of financial assistance in the form of bursaries enabling access to coaching, equipment and facilities for training. You name it, we’ll provide a friendly helping hand.

Our scheme incorporates what is known in the trade as a Talent ID programme. Ours provides the opportunity for the youngster to participate and excel in sport regardless of any social, physical economic disadvantages that they may face. And Rising Stars doesn’t restrict itself to the areas in which our contracts operate either: our Talent ID scheme focuses on providing opportunities for talented young sports people in the country’s most deprived economic areas. Further, ours is a scheme that seeks to promote links with existing support schemes, county sports partnerships, national governing bodies and local clubs, amongst other things. So it all fits in nicely with a wider support network providing youngsters with all the help they need. Lovely stuff.

Rising Stars is funded by the wondrous efforts of our very own colleagues in Team Active Nation, as well as the sales of the fabulous sporting (or otherwise) products in our Active Essentials range. In return, all we ask is that our Rising Stars acknowledge their support for our charity, which might involve attending events to raise the profile of Active Nation and their own sport, leading discovery sessions in their area of sporting expertise, writing a blog for this beautiful website or even wearing some pretty special branded kit. It’s all good clean fun.

Rising Stars is all about looking to the future, and taking responsibility in the present to make sure our brightest sporting talents are a big part of it, with nothing able to stop them from reaching their goals. That’s something to look forward to.