Last month, the South of England Men’s Lacrosse Association (SEMLA) began a series of video calls with its community to discuss equality and diversity within lacrosse.

The recent Black Lives Matter protests/movement coupled with UK Pride month led the SEMLA committee to pause for thought and begin to challenge themselves and question whether they were doing enough to make lacrosse an attractive recreational pastime for everyone living in their region.

It is hoped the new video calls will help to find ways to promote lacrosse to communities who may not be aware or have misconceptions of the sport.

President of SEMLA, Rob Gooch, believes it’s important to have difficult conversations around equality and diversity to help the sport make changes to stand out from the crowd.

“Lacrosse is a smaller sport, battling with many other sports in this country for the recognition and funding that are needed to grow participation numbers, create a thriving grass roots network, and attract more world class athletes”, comments Rob.

"Showing that we are a sport with players from a full range of backgrounds can only help to open the game up to new people and help the sport to grow”.

The calls are conducted with the Microsoft Teams platform that so many of us have become accustomed to using during the COVID-19 pandemic but, despite this, SEMLA are keen that everyone has the opportunity to make their voice heard.

“Meeting rules are outlined at the start of each meeting”, Rob says, “we want people to openly share their experiences, both positive and negative, about equality and diversity in lacrosse. Minutes are not taken, other than to record actions and next steps and, so far, we have identified the need to form a 'working group' to take experiences and turn them into positive actions for club and regional development plans”.

The meetings are advertised to the SEMLA community but are open to anyone interested in helping address the issues of equality and diversity in lacrosse and growing the game as a whole.

The new working group SEMLA has recently formed will meet monthly from mid-July with a representative from England Lacrosse and our new partners Sporting Equals being invited to join.

If you have any more questions regarding the new SEMLA equality and diversity calls or their new working group, don’t hesitate to contact Rob Gooch at [email protected].