24 Dec 2024
Current Chief Executive Ford visits previous incumbent Bulman as part of heritage project
He travelled to Bournemouth at the weekend to record an interview where George, now 86, recounted memories of his time in the sport, including a spell as time as Chief Executive of the English Volleyball Association (as was) in the late 1980s.
Duting that time, the top indoor league was brodcast on Channel 4 and sposnored by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
George was also a multiple winner of Coach of the Year, was instrumental in setting up, running and developing Liverpool, Leeds Poly (now Leeds Gorse) and clubs in Ireland when he lives there in the 1960s and has dedicated more than 60 years to the sport.
Charlie collected a range or archive material collected by George - who also wrote Volleyball: Play The Game – that he is being donated as part of the bid to comprehensively chronicle the sport’s history in England.
The heritage project was established in the early part of this year and initially saw a number of people interested in helping with it meet at Cup Finals weekend in April.
A smaller core project group was subsequently established to define its scope and to drive things forward from the period 2024 to 2028.
As part of Volleyball England’s vision to be ‘an organisation that creates a deep-rooted sense of belonging for everyone within our community’ it aims to ensure that the present and future of the sport is connected to the past.
Ultimately, it is hoped that the project will culminate in the creation of a digital/physical archive and heritage assets that can be being used across volleyball’s communities to help cultivate the desired sense of ‘belonging’.
The four overarching project themes
- To showcase and expose the history of the sport though a collection of digital and physical assets accessible and promoted to everyone in the Volleyball community.
- Through a suite of campaigns and communications, bring to life the plotted history of the sport by connecting present day endeavours to past achievements and learnings.
- To increase engagement levels across the Volleyball community through reconnecting with people and organisations that once played a vital role in the sport and who through a suite of engagement activities and services would stay involved in the sport.
- To ensure that the strategic direction of Volleyball England is connected to, benefits from lessons learnt and is able to progressively enhance all formats of the sport into the future.
Progress made against each theme to date
-
A Volleyball England History Facebook Page established, with more than 900 followers so far.
-
The naming of the overall Five Nations Championships trophy as the Dr Don Anthony Trophy.
-
A meeting with Leeds City Museums/Sporting Heritage to frame the approach we will take from an asset collection perspective.
-
The cataloguing of Volleyball England archive materials.
-
Collaboration with the Volleyball England Foundation on 70th anniversary events in 2025.
-
The scoping of a Heritage Podcast – in collaboration with Luke Wiltshire, host of the That Volleyball Guy podcast – with people of interest identified and grouped accordingly
-
The setting up of a Masters Volleyball partnership – widening opportunities to reconnect with the sport
-
The holding of initial conversations with West Midlands partners in relation to resurrecting historic tournaments
-
The story of the sport by the use of the #Inclusivebydesign hashtag by existing and new partners.
‘Understanding where you’ve been to know where you could go’
On the progress made so far, Charlie said: “When I started in post, I was fortunate to spend time with Barbara Totterdell ,who provided me with a potted history of the sport from 1955, when Dr Don Anthony, created the association all the way up to the modern day.
I have long since believed that you must understand where you have been to know where you could go which highlights clearly the importance of a project like this.
“I am grateful and appreciative of the time and energy that Geoff Allen, Ian Cooper, Ron Richards and Simone Turner are giving as part of the project group, and I am genuinely excited about the project’s potential to emotionally connect the sport at all levels.”
Further updates on the project will be shared as part of our Game Plan Strategy quarterly updates and on the Volleyball England History Facebook Page.
