Member Article

Legacy Sport founder shortlisted in Social Entrepreneur of the Year award

Profiling the finalists in the 2014 Social Entrepreneur of the Year award

Huddersfield-based community sport and health entrepreneur, Shaun Fox, who runs Legacy School Sport CIC is one of five finalists shortlisted in the 2014 Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award – an award presented by the School for Social Entrepreneurs and supported by Lloyds Bank. The award winner is in with the chance of a £10,000 prize.

Shaun founded Legacy Sport in 2011 as a social enterprise helping to promote healthy lifestyle habits and positive physical activity experiences for young people. The company delivers PE, sport and health programmes to schools and community groups across West Yorkshire.

His award nomination recognises his dedication and innovation in supporting and training primary school teachers in how to deliver high quality PE lessons to their pupils. Through core programmes including cycling-focussed Bikeability and dedicated Sports Leadership training Legacy Sport helps teachers work with pupils to help develop sports skills, raise their confident in sport and create a positive association between sport and physical activity, to continue into their adult life.

High quality provision then extends into structured out of curriculum activities including lunchtime, breakfast and after school clubs and holiday camps. Shaun and his team ensure that young people’s sporting journeys are clear and simple and helps to sign-post participants towards other community sports initiatives, helping to create a positive and sustainable network in the local area.

Speaking about the nomination Shaun Fox said:

“Winning the award would be a fantastic achievement for us and would allow us to roll out the community sport model that we’ve developed elsewhere. The award will also contribute to us recruiting a full-time dedicated operations and commercial manager who could help us take the business to the next level.”

As well as being nominated for the Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award Shaun and Legacy School Sport have been part of a ‘Scale Up’ programme at the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE), which is also supported by Lloyds Bank. The programme is set up to encourage further development of Social Enterprises and to help them further their positive work under a not-for-profit remit.

The programme has helped Shaun and his team immensely, he says:

“Being part of the School for Social Entrepreneurs ‘Scale Up’ programme has helped me focus on developing Legacy School Sport CIC. I feel fortunate to have learned from the fantastic team at SSE and working with other social entrepreneurs and my Lloyds Bank mentor has been both rewarding and inspiring.”

The other finalists in the Social Entrepreneur of the Year award include:

Jane Hatton of Evenbreak based in the West Midlands: a specialist online job board run by disabled people for disabled people. Evenbreak helps inclusive employers attract more disabled candidates; helps disabled jobseekers find work and promotes the benefits of employing disabled people

Becky John of Who Made Your Pants?, based in Southampton a social business creating jobs for women who are refugees. It takes perfect fabrics left over from the lingerie industry and turns them into gorgeous new pants for women

Andy Ross of New Caledonian Woodlands in Scotland, a social & environmental enterprise which benefits both people and the planet. Engages over 1,200 individuals per year on eight projects, focus on tackling mental ill-health and employability (people) and encouraging greener lifestyles

Siân Workman of Building Lives CIC in London who work with social landlords donate community spaces to Building Lives in the heart of deprived communities. These are then transformed into Construction Training Academies which train hundreds of local people a year, preparing them for the construction industry

To find out more about Legacy School Sport CIC, please visit: www.legacysport.co.uk. To vote for Shaun Fox, visit: www.the-sse.org/SEYA. Voting is open now and closes on 31 October.

The winner of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2014 will be announced on the evening of Wednesday 05 November at a ceremony in London.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Cara J. Stewart .