Laura Baxter MBE, Chief Executive of Special Olympics Great Britain (GB) gives an update on the position of our next National Summer Games.
From our attendance at recent competitions and our regular discussions with our athletes coaches and volunteers, everyone within Special Olympics Great Britain (GB) is very much aware of the desire for a National Summer Games to take place in the near future.
In recognition of this, the Board of Trustees, along with the National Office team, is looking into options of how a Special Olympics GB National Summer Games could be staged in the future.
Feasibility work will take place in early 2025 and we will reach out to our membership and other key stakeholders, including the Athlete Leadership Team, for consultation as part of this process in due course.
We want to ensure that our athletes, coaches and volunteers can all contribute to the discussions about what a future National Summer Games could look like, in terms of size and scale, but also how it could be delivered from a structure and resource perspective.
We’re acutely aware of the disappointment and frustration at not being able to deliver a National Summer Games since 2017, which was due to the unprecedented impact of the covid pandemic in the run-up to the proposed 2021 event. The impact of covid is something that is still felt widely across the Special Olympics GB network from a participation, competition and financial perspective.
However, reflections on previous National Summer Games, the 2022 Summer Series of Sport and this year’s inaugural National Winter Games have highlighted how traditional competition models can be adapted to make our events more accessible and resourceful in the ever-changing sporting environment.
Staging a National Summer Games requires vast resources to deliver and, as such, it will not be possible to deliver such an event in 2025. However, we are acutely aware that our national and international events provide a potentially life-changing experience for our athletes, and it presents an opportunity for the charity to highlight our impact, and to engage current and potential corporate partners and stakeholders. In turn this has the potential to generate an increase in awareness of our work, the levels of engagement with our stakeholders and potential funding opportunities.
A future event would need to align with the bidding process, and subsequent preparations for GB to potentially host the Special Olympics World Summer Games in 2031, as well as supporting the selection of the Team SOGB delegation for the preceding event in Santiago, Chile, in 2027.
Special Olympics GB’s Board of Trustees and National Office team is committed to examining all options for the delivery of a future National Summer Games and we look forward to sharing more details of the potential opportunity through consultation in the coming months.