Taster sessions, camps, trial memberships-which do we count as participation?
This is an important question. It’s about what you’re achieving towards the programme aims and it effects how manageable it is for you to gather information on beneficiaries. CSI is about engaging people in participation in community sport and physical activity so they can form habits that change their lives. Taster sessions and open days are marketing, not genuinely engaging people in a way that will have a chance to change their habits. So they don’t count (and you don’t need to get those hundreds of casual visitors to complete registration forms – phew!). Camps are intensively engaging people in physical activity, so they definitely count. You’ll need to have people register for those anyway, so the monitoring will be easy to incorporate. Trial memberships are a form of marketing that may or may not get people to participate. If they use their membership, then they become participants. If they don’t, they have never participated.
