Get Out Get Active partners come together for seventh national event

On Thursday 19 May, we held our Get Out Get Active (GOGA) seventh annual conference in Manchester. Local and national GOGA partners came together to celebrate the programme’s person-centred approach.

Every year, people, who work tirelessly across our GOGA locations, attend and showcase their work. This year, the conference celebrated how GOGA is redefining the traditional activity approaches and creating fresh opportunities. That is increasing the ‘active together’ approach, where disabled and non-disabled people take part together.

Activity Alliance Head of Programme, Kat Southwell, welcomed attendees and opened the conference by talking more about the theme and GOGA successes.

Attendees enjoyed panel discussions, Q&A sessions, and took part in a special superhero activity, led by GOGA partners Live Active NI. The conference featured a fantastic keynote from Verity Smith. With a message of how sport and physical activity is more than about being active but can bring people together and improve mental health.

During the event, panel discussions included local partners and activity leaders. They focused on how GOGA has helped people be active together and reaching a diverse audience. Key takeaways from the panels were creating a space for social connectivity and building participant confidence.

Kat Southwell, Head of Programmes at Activity Alliance said:

It’s exciting having everyone back in the same room together. It was great to see the conference bring together our partners, deliverers, and key stakeholders to celebrate the success of GOGA. The day showed what a person-centred approach can achieve and how our local and national partners continue to share their learning more widely.

Kat Southwell, Head of Programmes

Ruth Hollis, Chief Executive at Spirit of 2012, launched a new report into levels of inactivity in UK adults, Step Change. The report includes eight principles underpinning success in getting the most inactive people to start to be active, and to stay active.

Ending the event, we saw Simon Tanner, from Wavehill, co-chaired a funders panel with Alex Giles, Graduate Programme Officer at Activity Alliance. The programme funders, Spirit of 2012, Sport England, and London Marathon Charitable Trust discussed the benefits of the GOGA approach and their hopes for the programme.

Closing the conference, Barry Horne, Activity Alliance CEO, ended with a powerful message,

Our work was never more important than it is now.

Barry Horne, Activtiy Alliance CEO

We are extremely proud of how localities continue to redefine and continue to create ‘active together’ opportunities through the GOGA approach. We are excited to see how our partners develop more interventions over the next few years. 

Thank you to everyone who made the event run so well.