Nominations for the 2014 Birmingham Sports Awards are well and truly open and we need you to let us know which of our region’s coaches, teams, clubs and individuals have impressed you most over the last year.
The awards are to be held at Aston Villa Football Club on 18th September and will be a great chance to celebrate the cream of the West Midlands sports scene.
There are 13 different award categories to be won, covering both the professional and amateur fields, and there is scope to recognise our young and up and coming stars of the future.
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If there is anyone you feel has made an outstanding contribution you have until August 1 to have your say by visiting and filling out the nomination form or nominate on the form on this page.
To give our readers a better idea of the impact the awards will have, in recent weeks we have featured some of the category sponsors asking them about their involvement and the potential impact of the ceremony on the wider West Midlands community.
We caught up with Mike Chamberlain, the CEO of Birmingham Sport and Physical Activity Trust, who shared the reasoning behind sponsoring the Birmingham Sports Awards and their support of the Club of the Year.
He said: “The Birmingham Sports Awards presents a fantastic opportunity to recognise and pay tribute to success in sport and physical activity in the city.
‘‘Our organisation supports all those that develop, deliver and take part in sport and physical activity in Birmingham.
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“For this reason, showing our support for this celebration event allows us to thank our partners for continuing to inspire a legacy from London 2012 in every community.
“Sports clubs play an integral role in their local communities by promoting the benefits of being physically active and in providing a development pathway for athletes to excel in their chosen sport.
“Clubs are also the backbone of grassroots sports and deserve recognition for continually achieving success in often challenging circumstances, which is why Birmingham Sport and Physical Activity Trust has chosen to sponsor Club of the Year 2014.”
Mr Chamberlain has strong views about the benefits sport can bring to individuals and the positive knock-on effects this can bring to businesses and society as a whole. He explained his perspective clearly, arguing: “The value of sport extends beyond sport for sport’s sake. It brings benefits to communities and individuals in areas of health and wellbeing, community cohesion, economic regeneration, and employment.
“For individuals, participation in sport develops key life skills such as leadership, teamwork, confidence, dealing with pressure, and communication, to name but a few.
“There are significant benefits for business to have an association with sport and physical activity, and they are numerous.
‘‘From a profile and social responsibility perspective, businesses can make a difference by helping talented youngsters to succeed through sponsorship; by becoming corporate partners of grass-roots community sport programmes or school sport festivals.’’
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Birmingham Sport and Physical Activity Trust has now been granted charitable status. Mr Chamberlain told us how this development will be of help in the West Midlands.
He said: “We will be using this new status to make an even bigger difference to the lives of young people in the City through sport and physical activity.
‘‘Our website has been designed to help people to identify how and where to get physically active, links to key initiatives in Birmingham and development support for local sports clubs.“
* To find out more, please visit www.birminghamsportpartnership.org and follow them on Twitter @BSPAPNews.