Spotlight on...

Each month, What's the Score? will shine a spotlight on a specific department within England Lacrosse, giving details of the work the staff in that department are doing.

July’s spotlight is shining on the Head of Business Strategy & Governance, Paul Coups.

What is your job title?

Paul Coups: Head of Business Strategy and Governance.

 Can you give us a general sense of what your role is?

Paul Coups: I'm the lead person who deals with our Sport England partnership and the investment that surrounds that and then that really sits as part of an overarching piece of developing the business strategy and working with Mark as Chief Executive and Board members on developing that strategic direction and the associated business plan.

And then really alongside all of that is then our governance processes and that's very much the top line governance area. So, meeting the code for sports governance, which is a mandatory part of our work with Sport England. And really how that cascades down through our system to have a more robust system of governance for us as a sport that's transparent and people can see where they fit into it and allows us to achieve our aims and objectives.

 What are the big projects you work on every year?

Paul Coups: There's two big ones; one is making sure that the Board is aware of how we are working towards that strategic plan and those aims and objectives. So, there's an accountability piece for us as a support to the Board and as a staff to the Board about how we are delivering against the direction that they have agreed and set.

And there's an accountability to Sport England as a partner about meeting the aims and objectives and the goals that we have set with them that sits as part of that overarching strategic direction.

So, there's a quite a lot of work there that is pulling together all aspects of what we do as a sport and what we do as staff. And then I'm providing a narrative to those main groups so they can understand where we are and it is interesting because when working with Sport England for example there’s a language we need to use, which is their language, and it's not our language if that makes sense; it's their interpretation and we do have to translate things to make it fit with the dialogue of each body. And similarly, we've got to do that same thing with our Annual Report (we're pulling that together right now) and that's obviously reporting to the game. We can't use the same language in that document that I would use with Sport England because it wouldn't make a lot of sense to them.

I think it's important that we have that in play and obviously the Communications team is at the front end of making sure that we’re giving information to the various bodies of stakeholders about what we do in the format that they need to consume that information. I think that's really important, so that that's a big piece of work. And that needs to be done about four times a year really so it's a very ongoing piece, but then obviously underneath that, we've got to be able to fit with all our interventions to ensure we’re delivering against our objectives. So, it’s a big part of my role to be across as many aspects of what we do, whether that's directly with operational staff or with other members of the senior team to understand where we are, where we have challenges, and how we can get across those to make sure all the time that we've set our objectives out and addressed how we’re meeting those objectives, whether that's the bonds that are set, the big ticket items in the business plan, the 10-year strategy but then how we've translated that across to our funding partners and whether that's supporting them or otherwise.

What new projects have you been working on more recently and what are you doing to get them off the ground?

Paul Coups: I think there's quite a big one that's coming at us which is understanding membership better and how we deal with membership better. So, that’s going to be something that I think we've got to get to grips with. Where at the moment we have a very single point, transactional way of dealing with membership, and that's fine because that's a very traditional method and it's where all governing bodies have been. However, if we're going to grow membership beyond, say, that very dedicated group of people that play in a league and the members of the club and such like, we've got to think about what behaviours people have within to engage with us as a sport. How they want to play because essentially that's what lacrosse is: I want to play or help people play.

Then we've also got to understand what data we can glean off that because data's a bit of a valuable commodity. So, I think we've got those areas and we can put that together in a sort of little box about membership and how we talk to people and we mentioned about that communication and so on about how we are talking to them and how often we're talking to them and what's the entry point and what's the next stage and the next stage and the next stage, how people play our game and what are those offers to play or supporting play? And then we can maybe go to other partners, commercial partners, with that data and maybe generate some investment or some support back into us. I think that's going to be a really, really big-ticket item for us to deal with.

And then working alongside that we've got our major events that we do, that we own. So how did they fit into the piece - how we develop the fly, how we develop National Schools as we move forward and I think those are going to be really important and, flipping it back to that membership piece, if we're going to really grow and be inclusive and go to different market segments and different communities, we've really got to get a firm platform on that. Those three areas: what does play look like? How do I play? How do we talk to people about playing and engaging with us? And what are those offers?

Did/has your role changed during the pandemic at all? If yes, how?

Paul Coups: Yeah, obviously I've always had an office base at home since starting with the company back in 1996, so I've always worked remotely. But I think that when we look at the use of IT and we've always had Office 365 but did we use it properly? No, I don't think we did. We were very much entrenched in our way and the pandemic gave us a pathway to head down which is probably improved and we know that from the staff feedback.

I think that what we've got to do is go another step, which is how we work in this hybrid wa where there is an online function for us to use for meetings and but also there's a face to face function and as staff members also get pulled back into that operational piece which is on the ground. We are a sport. It does happen. It is face to face. It occurs on the ground. We have volunteers that we have to help, which may include going and seeing them. How does hybrid working evolve to be most effective and I think that that's the journey that I feel we've been on.

The biggest thing that changed in my role specifically is that we accelerated a whole chunk of work because we didn't have the actual delivery of the game to deal with because the game stopped. So we accelerated a whole piece of work that probably would have normally taken eight to 10 months to get in play and we actually got that set up and on the go within half that time. What I was able to do was bring up quite a few of the people into working in the area of changing strategy, strategy and policy to interventions and operations and I think that can only be a good thing for us as a company.

If you were stranded on a desert island and you could take one item with you, what would it be and why?

Paul Coups: It would have to be my surfboard, wouldn't it? If it’s a desert island, hopefully one side of it will have a break on it and, yeah, don't go somewhere like that without your surfboard.

Paul has nominated Kerrie Lawler to be interviewed for August’s edition of Spotlight on…

Spotlight on...

Each month, What's the Score? will shine a spotlight on a specific department within England Lacrosse, giving details of the work the staff in that department are doing.

June’s spotlight is shining on the Finance/Accounts team consisting of Neil Edgar and Sanjay Sathe.

What is your job title?

Neil: My job title is Finance Manager.

Can you give us a general sense of your role?

Neil: My job is to ensure that there's financial probity in the organisation and make sure that monies that come in are spent on what they should be, providing information to the to the board, the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and down through the staff and then obviously liaising with external third parties, specifically the auditors, Beevers. I also make sure that we produce a set of annual accounts as we have to being a limited company. Other third parties would be Sports England, filling in reconciliations for them, liaising with the bank. They would be the main ones, I think.

And the same questions to you, Sanjay: what is your job title?

Sanjay: My job title is Finance Assistant.

And can you give us a general sense of your role?

Sanjay: My role is majorly about providing financial assistance to the Finance Manager, to the Senior Leadership Team, and also to the staff in terms of expense claim forms or any other financial-related queries that at a lower level can come to me. Of course, if there's something more that needs to be explained, then it goes to the Finance Manager. I also do the updating on a daily basis with the purchase and sales transaction sheets, with whatever movement takes place in terms of invoices to be paid, sales, invoices to be raised, that's part of my role. Then, on a monthly basis, checking and processing expense claim forms, credit card reconciliations across the different credit card holders and making sure we log in their usage and reconciling with the credit card statement. And of course, we have our providers who are outsourcing agencies like Synergy, who keep our stocks and basically I work on reconciliation work with the stock figures with Synergy and so on and so forth. So, yeah, a lot of work around the finance support.

Back over to Neil, what are the big projects you work on every year?

Neil: They’re not really big projects but the big tasks are the budget, then producing the annual accounts, and then in between there’s the quarterly reporting to the various different bodies. So, the Board and Sport England and then anyone else who needs to be availed of those sort of figures. But it's basically a sort of rolling process: you do a budget, you monitor against the budget, when you look at your actuals etc. and then you forecast what's going to happen for the future, so you're always ensuring that you understand what's actually happening in the business and how that results financially and what that means for your finances going forwards especially when cash is a very important thing.

And Sanjay, what are the big projects you work on every year?

Sanjay: For me, there’s nothing as such that I would do on a yearly basis, but whatever work that Neil would do and if he needs any support or information gathering or he needs any data to be collected or put together for his work, I would then help him and assist in that part of the work.

Neil: Sanjay’s basically generating and processing the transactional data and I'm analysing at a higher level, pulling it together and analysing it at a high level. Really, Sanjay is processing all the transactional data. So, purchase invoices that come in, sales invoices that we want to send out, credit card and the Stripe income that we get every week. So it's more hands on and daily/weekly tasks rather than bigger tasks. But then Sanjay is involved in the Finance, Audit, and Risk Committee (FARC) and that's our finance committee that we report to quarterly to review the figures before they go to Board, just so they have a more detailed analysis of it. There's a board member that sits on there, Michael Estill. But then a summary of that basically goes up to the Board each quarter for the board meeting just so they can be kept abreast of it, because they're actually responsible for it.

What new projects have you been working on more recently and what are you doing to get them off the ground?

Neil: It’s all pretty similar stuff for me, some of the things might change slightly, but it's mostly similar stuff.

Sanjay: For me, basically, it’s not exactly new, but I've taken it with more focus, I would say the debt collection because we worked up a plan on how we could get more output and more productivity through the debt collection. So we have made a plan and we're working on that. So I'm kind of doing that. I think it's something I want to say as a new project, but something which has come as a bigger focus for me which I'm working on.

Did/has your role changed during the pandemic at all? If yes, how?

Neil: It changed during the pandemic, yeah, because I went to a job share with England Squash and I'm doing a similar role with them so therefore I'm not full time. With England lacrosse, I'm half a Full-Time Equivalent (FTE). And then Sanjay obviously came in within the first lockdown, in the October period, I think, and he's taken on the transactional because what I was doing was I was doing everything and then I was learning the squash role as well, so it was pretty hard from the March to the October.

Sanjay: I don't think I can say anything because I wasn’t here before the pandemic so I don't really know what it was like before pandemic at England Lacrosse.

Neil: Sanjay's role probably wouldn't be any different because of the pandemic. It's just he's doing it from home which makes it a little bit more difficult because you're not starting the office.

If you were stranded on a desert island and you could take one item with you, what would it be and why?

Sanjay: I’ll answer for Neil, he’ll take his spreadsheets!

Neil: I’ll probably be a bit cheesy and say that I'd have to take my family, I think. But if it wasn't my family then I think it would have to be my pillow, my duck feather pillow, it has to be that really, otherwise I wouldn't get a good night's sleep.

Sanjay: I might take some sort of weapon. The weapon can be used as a tool as well as for defence and in the desert you have animals, you have snakes, scorpions. And I can at least get some food killing scorpions.

Neil: I think you’ve been watching too many films, Sanjay.

Neil and Sanjay have nominated Paul Coups to be interviewed for July’s edition of Spotlight on…

Spotlight on...

Each month, What's the Score? will shine a spotlight on a specific department within England Lacrosse, giving details of the work the staff in that department are doing.

May's spotlight is shining on the Education team consisting of Nik Roberts and Ryan Griffiths.

What is your job title?

Ryan Griffiths: Officiating & Competitions Coordinator

Can you give us a general sense of what your role is?

Ryan Griffiths: It’s pretty much everything to do with officiating and has started to include a lot more of the disciplinary side as well recently. I deal with anything to do with getting people qualified, the CPD for officials, liaising with heads of workforce, helping officiating coaching leads to make sure that people who have taken courses get signed off, and making sure our international officials get the right amount of coaching, but then also looking at how we can up-skill the entry level officials and what opportunities we can provide to those people.

And the same question for you, Nik. What is your job title?

Nik Roberts: Regional Education & Skills Officer

And can you give us a general sense of what your role is?

Nik Roberts: My job is to set up and initiate courses mainly at the bottom end with the Fundamentals and the Field courses. I'm about to take over the Talent course to try and move that forward as well. A lot of my time is spent trying to get the right people on the right course at the right time and to organise appropriate venues for the courses with good tutors. I make sure people get through the course, which has been damaged hugely by COVID, obviously, and that the course is fit for purpose. It’s just little tweaks here and there at the moment and I think the Fundamentals and Field courses are in a reasonably good state of health, but we're always adding on and tweaking.

Nik, what are the big projects you work on every year?

Nik Roberts: Well, the the thing is, except for redesigning courses, which I work on with Richard Gartside, it's not really project driven in the education and skills department, it's more process driven. So we're constantly reviewing the courses to see if they're fit for purpose. I'm looking to get new courses online: a Tutors course and bits and pieces like that, but it's just it's not project driven, it's process driven so putting on courses every quarter in each region, making sure tutors are up for it, it's not a project, so there's no real project involved in the coaching side of things. I do get involved in the other departments in the provision of coaches and making sure the coaches up to the right skill level because the Academy coaches and Triple Arrow Camps coaches all come through the course system - that’s an ongoing thing.

And the same question for you Ryan. What are the big projects you work on every year?

Ryan Griffiths: A lot of my projects are sort of calendar based. So we have National Schools, we have The Fly, we have certain events that are our flagship events and they’re always in the calendar and we know what we're going to be dealing with. But then for the rest of the my job role, it’s a little bit like Nik’s and it becomes a lot more process driven; rather than event based, it becomes about preparing for the next season and getting our database and paperwork sorted for the next year.

Nik, has or did your job change during the pandemic? And if it did, how?

Nik Roberts: Well, the big change was having to move all the theory in the courses online, which has actually improved the course in my eyes; I think people get more out of it and it does have its difficulties but I think that's that's the biggest change since the beginning of the pandemic. More recently, we've had the opportunity to go back to classroom based courses which gives us a bit more interaction with the people on the course and they find it easier to ask question when they’re at an in-person session.

And Ryan, has or did your job change during the pandemic? And if it did, how?

Ryan Griffiths: I’ve had the same experience as Nik really but my opinion is that the courses do benefit from being delivered in person because if you're talking about more complex theory you can go through it more easily. Certainly in our Level 2 and above officiating courses you need that face to face interaction because the topics that you're discussing aren't as simple. In terms of my role during the pandemic more specifically, it is significantly different from before. Because we operate in such a large geographical location, I used to spend my time driving around to different places to meet different people and it’d be a four or five hour round trip to get to our lacrosse hubs, so you end up spending a lot of time in the car and this is where the convenience of doing a lot of stuff online comes in. We've now got people on committees and engaging with us who would not have had we not been doing meetings online.

And finally, if you were stranded on a desert island and you could take one item with you, what item would you take and why?

Nik Roberts: I need two items: a ball and a lacrosse stick. That’s all I’d need!

Ryan Griffiths: If I could take my full game set-up in one box as one item then I’d take that but if not then it’d just be a football.

Nik and Ryan have nominated the Kasey Allen to be interviewed for June’s edition of Spotlight on…

Spotlight on...

Each month, What's the Score? will shine a spotlight on a specific department within England Lacrosse, giving details of the work the staff in that department are doing.

April's spotlight is shining on the Talent & Performance team consisting of Jane Powell, Rebecca Wood, and the Talent Pathway Administrator (formerly Emily Summerfield).

What is your job title?

Jane Powell: National Talent and Performance Manager.

Can you give us a general sense of what your role is?

Jane Powell: I think it's mainly forward facing. In other words, I do meet a lot of people at various stages especially on the Talent Pathway; I always go to a Regional Academy and I rotate around. I haven't been up to the north because strategically London, South London, and the North and South-West regions are more difficult for other staff members to visit. While at Regional Academy sessions, I interact with parents and players as well as coaches, and then the same at National Academy sessions.

And then with Performance, it's about managing the National Squads. So, I have monthly meetings with the National Squads where we determine the strategic direction of the squads and then work out operational detail, passing that on to others to implement. If we need coaches for the National Squads, then I am also responsible for appointing them via an open and transparent application process which never happened prior to me coming into lacrosse.

One delicate thing I have to manage now is the balance between England and British Lacrosse because, particularly in the men's game, it’s the same players playing for both teams. For example, British Lacrosse are going to Germany for a tournament and I've had to say we can't take an England team because the men's England players are all playing for British Lacrosse.

Slightly separately, I'm going to a TASS (Talented Athletes Sports Scholarship scheme) meeting on Monday and that's one of the things I've been the most pleased with over the last few years is that we've got 12 athletes who managed to get TASS funding which, when we're not one of the targeted sports for Sport England, is pretty big that they're still recognising us and letting us be on that. I mean, it be great if we had a few more on the scheme but 12 is great and we've maintained that over the last four or five years which is pretty good really.

And over to Rebecca. What's your job title?

Rebecca Wood: My job title is Talent Performance Coordinator.

Can you give us a general sense of what your role is?

Rebecca Wood: The overview of my role is basically helping with the Talent Pathway from the Under 13s right up to National Academies and I have a bit of involvement with the National Squads dealing with their booking for travel and competitions and tours. I basically make sure the operational side of the Talent Pathway is up and running: deploying coaches, making sure facilities are booked, making sure relevant information is going out to parents and players, setting up webinars for players and coaches. And so, yes, the day-to-day runnings of the Pathway.

What are the big projects that you work on every year?

Jane Powell: I would say Rebecca and I work quite closely together, if I'm honest. So, while Rebecca does most of the admin for our big projects, we discuss everything together at the same time. If we work from the bottom up, we run the Under 13/14 County Academies where we get to assess young athletes for the first time; that falls heavily on Rebecca's slate and, to give it a bit of context, we're talking about over 1000 people involved in the Pathway each year. So, if there's 1000 people, that's 1000 minimum emails and then what you get from highly dependent people is you'll get four or five emails that keep coming backwards and forwards, so that can be multiplied quite quickly by five at least.

Rebecca Wood: Especially with the Under 13/14 County Academies, because the players are new to the Pathway, they don't know how the system works, so they're quite keen with the emails and questions. So we try to get as much information out as we can to cut down those questions, but some of them are just keen and want to know the ins and outs of the system.

Jane Powell: When we've done Under 13/14 County Academies, we move into the four Regional Academies and, again, it's about making sure we've got facilities, coaches, and a plan of action, i.e. what are we coaching? Who’s got the balls? Have we got the balls in the right place? Have we got goals in the right place?

After that, we’ve got the National Academy for the girls which takes place once a month throughout the season. So that's the big annual Talent projects but on top of that we run about 10 webinars each year. This year, we've probably already done more than usual because we've been doing a Meet Team England series of webinars where we’ve had six England players speak and offered the Academy girls the opportunity to ask questions, which has been a very worthwhile project. In the end, we'll probably do a lot more than 10 webinars this year.

As far as National Squads go, I have a call once a month where we look at all the training schedules and fixtures and then I try to attend some of those to support the teams. This year, we're branching out a little bit, and I haven’t told Rebecca yet, but she's going to the European Box Lacrosse Championship to support the men in that tournament; we try to make sure we have an England lacrosse representative at each of the summer tournaments. We’ve got five main ones this summer so I'm going to three of them, Mark Coups is going to Dresden for the Sixes tournament there and Rebecca is going to the Box Championships.

Oh, and then we've got a tour at the end of all that for the girls’ National Academy to Prague. As you can tell, when one thing finishes, we've got the next one coming up. It's just continuous and there's never a quiet time, if I'm honest. And by that, I mean there's something every month and then, of course, we support National Schools and The Fly quite strongly so, yeah, it's just continual really.

What new projects have you been working on more recently and what are you doing to get them off the ground?

Rebecca Wood: We've started working with Mental health UK to implement a course, a programme, for the Academy athletes which focuses on mental health in young athletes. Up to now, we've started the initial training with Mental Health UK as well as the head coaches in each region of the country. Next, we’re going to start working with those head coaches on the logistics of how we're going to roll out sessions at each Regional Academy. But all the coaches were really keen to get involved and we think it's a really good programme, particularly after COVID and with a lot of young people's mental health being negatively impacted because of the pandemic.

Jane Powell: We’re also working with the University of Gloucester to conduct some research on the physical demands of the 10-a-side game versus the six-a-side format. We've got GPS data which we’re comparing and contrasting and working with the University to try to get a lot more detail and data around the sixes game compared to the 10s game.

Did/has your role change during the pandemic at all? If yes, how?

Rebecca Wood: I don't think my role particularly changed, but I think the way we work changed. We were able to continue working throughout the pandemic but we went online and so we started setting up webinars and online workshops which we'd never really took the time to do before. So I think the pandemic gave us that time to connect with parents, players and coaches, which I think really helped and benefitted.

Jane Powell: In fact, we were really lucky because, despite the pandemic, we kept going. And, actually, the timings of when we were allowed to play after lockdowns seemed to always coincide with when we had Regional Academy scheduled so that was good; obviously our practices on the ground and the detail and data stuff that we had to send out changed and we were doing temperature checks and all that sort of thing but that wasn’t a massive problem.

With lacrosse not being recognized as an elite sport by the Government, that obviously changed things because we weren't allowed to do anything during lockdowns. So in some respects, especially in the Performance sphere, we're playing catch up and we’ve been victims of the Men’s Under-19 World Lacrosse Championship now being Under-21 because at least one of the boys has dropped out because he was fed up with the schedule changing a lot and it's a big commitment as well when the players don't get funded to commit to that. So it's had a knock on effect on Performance in a negative fashion because we're now having to play catch up really.

Just bringing in the Talent Pathway Administrator role, which was a new role for this year. Did the pandemic allow you time to think that you needed that person. Or was it something that was already in the pipeline before the pandemic?

Rebecca Wood: I think it was always in the pipeline and just because we're growing so much. Ultimately, there's only Jane and myself so we needed that extra help to allow me to work on other things like deploying the right coaches etc. and so Jane and I can make sure we're putting the right curriculum in place.

The Administrator’s main focus is on liaising with parents, talking to parents, sending out the relevant information to parents. The Administrator is effectively the face of the Academy, in a way. So they're talking to parents every day and making sure our customer service is good so the parents feel like they're getting the service they're paying for.

And finally, if you were stranded on a desert island and you could take one item with you, what item would you take and why?

Rebecca Wood: I think I'm going to go up bug spray because wherever I go on holiday, I get eaten alive by any sort of bug.

Jane Powell: Yeah, well, I'm not worried about survival.

Rebecca Wood: Just want to have a good time while you’re there, Jane.

Jane Powell: Yeah, absolutely! I don't know. Probably have photo of my family and friends.

Jane and Rebecca have nominated the Education department to be interviewed for May’s edition of Spotlight on…

Spotlight on...

Each month, What's the Score? will shine a spotlight on a specific department within England Lacrosse, giving details of the work the staff in that department are doing.

March's spotlight is shining on the Marketing & Communications team consisting of Caroline Royle, Sean White and Jason Naylor.

Can you give us a general sense of your role?

Sean: I think from an overarching point of view, my job is essentially promoting the work of the organisation as well as promoting the wider game and things that happen within the wider game. 

So on the one side, I would say we tell people about the things that we do as England Lacrosse and then promote what the people within the lacrosse community do/are doing too.

I feel like we as a communications team all work together in a sense but in terms of the more tasky/jobby type things that I do would be working on websites, keeping them up-to-date, planning and working out our social media channels; looking at different ways that we communicate with people so social media/email/newsletters, that sort of thing. 

Jason: I think that's what I would say about my job as well; we've got the overarching stuff, but then Sean and I kind of work together a bit more on the task type stuff: the social media/website side of things, The Fly accounts as well as the England lacrosse accounts. 

Caroline: My role is more looking at the bigger things like budgetary allocation, resource allocation, working with the senior team to work out priorities etc. And then filtering those down to try and sort of empower Sean and Jason to take the ball really and roll with what they need to do without me micromanaging every minute, which is good.

Also from a partnership point of view, I try to ensure that we sign the right partners to help us achieve what we want to achieve within both the comms area and wider.

What are the big projects you work on every year?

Caroline: I think it's very much dictated by priorities that are set at the start of the year and that means the focus in terms of resource, time, and budgetary spend is placed within certain areas.

However, you know these guys have to be all things to all people, so sometimes when there isn't budget spend or resources allocated to areas they have to do it anyway as they know. Even though we always say we're going to prioritise, sometimes it just doesn't happen that way because I don't think anyone ever wants to say no ultimately.

But I think as we get better at planning, it enables us to spend more within areas. So, for example, The Fly has good investment in terms of budgetary spends so we can work with third parties to achieve a good level of communications which certainly helps.

But there are things that are constants within our role like national squads and then reporting on the community game etc. (whatever that may mean) and the regular drum beat of comms that Jason does on the EL channels.

Jason: For me, the social media itself is kind of a big project that we work on all the time almost constantly. There's definitely different facets to that, whether it's like Caroline says the England squads, or if it's the university game or the club game or The Fly now. But that's kind of a big constant in our lives. 

But then we've got all the stuff that we plan for every year like National Schools, The Fly or the School Challenge Cup, which we know it's going to happen every year and we know we need to plan for.

Sean: Events and competitions can sometimes feel a bit separate but they're quite linked in to what we do. Again, going back to the set of priorities decided on at the beginning of each year, when we know what these priorities are then that influences the events or competitions that we run and the resource that we put into each of those. So then that in turn then influences where we put our focus in the work on social media or in the work across the website.

So essentially whilst we do our own thing. Everything is linked in to trying to meet the priorities and trying to meet the requirements of each area.

What new projects have you been working on more recently and what are you doing or have been doing to get them off the ground?

Jason: The big new project is The Fly, right? We did it last year and we have the experience of last year, but then this year feels a lot bigger. We've got four new team Identities with four new Instagram accounts, we've set up a Tik-Tok account and we want to do everything that we did last year plus a little bit more and we want to do it better. So I think that has been the big project for this year. 

And we've got what we’re calling ‘Brand Managers’ who are work experience students from UCLan in Preston and they're helping us out with the team accounts, so that's how we’re getting those off the ground.

Caroline: Yeah, and that would illustrate my role in terms of trying to get a better production company on board for The Fly to help in partnership with the event. So it kind of illustrates the difference in terms of my role from Sean and Jason’s roles. They're very much ensuring that the doing gets done, whereas I'm looking at how we can achieve that increase in quality through partnerships for the event.

Sean: I think looking at the bigger picture for The Fly and the new six-a-side format of the game, it’s essentially a massive new project for all of us in all areas of England Lacrosse. So, that's basically the reason for The Fly because of the creation of this new format with a look towards inclusion in events like the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games; things that can be pushed to a much wider audience. 

So what we’re doing with The Fly filters through things like events and then filters through education and eventually filters through everything. So I think The Fly in terms of being a single project has been something we've been working on, but really the way the sixes game has just come into everything has been an even bigger project outside of just The Fly. We've had to help each area to incorporate the sixes game into everything that they do too. 

Has your role changed during the pandemic and if it did, then how?

Sean: Pre-pandemic, our role was to talk about the things that were happening within the game, and for months and months no lacrosse was being played meaning there was no lacrosse to talk about and I think we became a bit of a middle man, bringing the game together at a time when they couldn't be together as such. 

So you know, whilst generally people would meet at an academy or meet at the club at the weekend, during the early days of the pandemic, none of that could be done. So I think our role was to try and bring all those people together while they couldn't actually be together physically; we did webinars and trying to get people to do challenges and things online, create conversation around things whilst people couldn't actually play lacrosse.

Jason: I think we got pretty good at writing statements, didn't we? Whether that was cancellation statements for tournaments or just statements about COVID restrictions, it seems like that’s all we did for 18 months!

Also, I think that when we stopped doing a lot of the lacrosse type stuff, we began doing a lot more planning for things in the future just because everything stopped. Pre-pandemic, everything came at us so quickly and it was always all go but during the first lockdown we definitely had a bit of time to stop and think about the future and plan a little better for those things.

Sean: I think we opened up more ways of communicating with the game and with groups that we had never really spoken to before. We've now got new ways of talking to the game through webinars and video calls which weren’t really a thing before the pandemic and now they’re an integrated part of everything that we do.

Caroline: What we did realise as well was that internal communication was really important too and that’s why we’ve now got this internal newsletter.

Initially the internal communication was obviously important because we were all sat in our houses but since that first lockdown we’ve been looking to continue and improve our ways of communicating.

While we were all locked down, we did speak a lot and we did lots of socials and there was a lots of connectivity internally. Then as things relaxed and people were able to leave their houses and go back to a bit of normality, it did fall off a bit. And I think we've been able to reflect on that and say: “OK, we probably needed a break from doing it quite as much but actually, what can we re-establish that connects us again?” Because it was good that we were so connected at that time and I think this is a tactic to try and encourage that.

And I know we're looking to do more webinars (now people aren't sick to death of them), so I think there are a lot of good things to come out of the pandemic and I do agree with Jason that planning was definitely one good thing that came out of it; we wouldn't have been able to plan The Fly to the level that we did and we wouldn't have been able to do the Playground to Podium Strategy for the sixes game. All of that was able to be undertaken because we weren't out doing anything else.

So I think there are benefits but obviously stopping the game for 12/18 months wasn't great, but it did enable us to do stuff.

If you were stranded on a desert island and you could take just one item with you, what item would you take with you and why?

Caroline: Is a dog an item? Because I’ll take my dog who's going to live forever on the island with me - forever and ever.

Jason: I'm just going to go simple and I'll take a pack of cards with me because I know quite a few one-player card games so they would keep me occupied.

Sean: I’m presuming it's a hot island because it's always a hot desert island with these sorts of questions. Mine would be sun cream because I would burn in seconds if I was out on a hot desert island. That would actually allow me to look around rather than bury myself in the sand!

Caroline, Sean, and Jason have nominated the Talent department to be interviewed for April’s edition of Spotlight on…

Spotlight on...

Each month, What's the Score? will shine a spotlight on a specific department within England Lacrosse, giving details of the work the staff in that department are doing.

The inaugural spotlight is shining on the Events team consisting of Abi Merrill and Helen Amos.

Can you give us a general sense of your role?

Abi: Simply put, my role encompasses the organisation’s events programme. During the pandemic obviously we didn't run any events so I took on the role of Wellbeing Officer. 

Within this new role, I'm currently working on the England Lacrosse People Strategy with several other staff members as well as just double checking that people are generally OK.

It's been a bit of a wild few years and part of my role is to ensure the team is happy and functioning well.

Helen: I work with Abi on events but focus on the competition side of things; that's more the lacrosse and technical aspects of events. 

During the pandemic, without competitions to run, I focused more on the sixes game and the ‘Playground to Podium’ strategy and the interventions that sit alongside those. 

In a nutshell, my role is a bit more project management and operational delivery alongside the competitions.

Abi: It works well having the two of us working on slightly different things within the events department; having someone who has technical ability and focus on the competition like Helen is great and she doesn't need to worry about logistics as that’s more my area. In that respect, I feel like both of us work quite well together.

Helen: I totally agree. When you're running events, you’ve got the event as a whole which has got all of the logistics of everything that comes with setting up and dressing an event and running it.

And then you've got the competition which is the teams and the officials and everything that sits inside that. When you're looking at big events like the National Schools Lacrosse Championships, that's too much for one person so splitting it works. 

Ryan [Griffiths] helps us out before and during events from an officials’ point of view; he recruits the officials and communicates with them while we tell him what is required for each of the competitions. He also gives us updates about what's going on within the officials’ space.

 What are the big projects you work on every year?

Abi: Since I joined the organisation, the number of regular projects I work on has expanded as when I first came in it was mainly the National Schools Lacrosse Championship. 

That competition used to be run by volunteers and schools but, when I got my job at England Lacrosse, the organisation was in the process of bringing the tournament in-house.

So, the National Schools Lacrosse Championship was always my first priority but different projects have been added over time.

I was lucky enough to be involved in the 2017 World Lacrosse Women’s World Championship, hosted by us in England, but the regular projects I work on include the National POP Lacrosse Championships, National Club Finals, BUCS Lacrosse Sixes Championships, School Challenge Cup, and, the major one at the moment, The Fly.

But that's just the events side of things; I’m also involved in the People Strategy, and I work closely with the Renumeration Committee (RemCom) as part of me starting to help out within the Human Resources (HR) space.

So yeah, it's quite busy.

Helen: I work on all the national events mentioned by Abi and obviously during the last couple of years The Fly has been added. 

I also organise the England Lacrosse Mixed Lacrosse Leagues and the Further Education College programme (also known as the Lacrosse Accredited Colleges Scheme).

In addition to this, I lead on our relationship with BUCS, the Youth Sport Trust, and a couple of other organisations such as AOC Sport and the Association for Physical Education (AFPE).

What new projects have you been working on more recently and what are you doing, or have been doing, to get them off the ground?

Abi & Helen: THE FLY!

Helen: That one’s new; we've been doing everything to get that off the ground.

Abi: It's interesting because, obviously during lockdown, both our jobs changed dramatically because we couldn't run competitions and events, so we focused heavily on planning and the future.

During lockdown, we actually had time to sit back and reflect on the events that we run at the moment as well as the new sixes format and what we were going to do with that.

Helen: That's kind of where the ‘Playground to Podium’ strategy came from: by discussing the sixes format and how we at England Lacrosse were going to integrate sixes into the lacrosse landscape alongside the existing traditional game.

That was a big chunk of planning work which then evolved into the delivery side of things - The Fly being at the top end, the educational resources at the bottom end, and the FE colleges and the new ‘Hub Programme’ in between.

Are The Fly and the ‘Playground to Podium’ strategy the first projects you have taken from start to finish and built from scratch?

Helen: The ‘Playground to Podium’ strategy is probably the biggest and most promising project that I've been involved in from scratch.

From not having any sixes at all to now hosting The Fly and thinking about the potential of the format in terms of the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, it’s incredible. 

Abi and I have done a lot of thinking around how we can improve and develop existing competitions and events, but before the pandemic I feel like we were just so in the routine of getting the regular annual stuff done that there wasn't much time to do new things. It’s obviously a double-edged sword but the pandemic offered us the space to be able to discuss and start to implement new things.

Abi: From my point of view, being involved in the organising of the 2017 World Lacrosse Women’s World Championship set me up really well as I can take learnings from that and transfer them into new projects like The Fly. 

At the end of the day, The Fly is almost like a mini–World Championships because you have the budgets, steering groups, working groups etc. So, I suppose it’s trying to transfer a lot of those skills which I've learned during previous projects into new projects.

Has your role changed during the pandemic and if it did, then how?

Helen: My role has changed more than a little bit since the start of the pandemic!

I started out as a Regional Coordinator; pre-pandemic most of my work was based around my region and doing regional management of lacrosse in the South-West. 

Between me supposedly leaving the organisation [to travel the world] to then staying put because I couldn't go anywhere, my role changed an awful lot and I now don't do any regional work at all.

Now, my role is all based on national initiatives and stuff that we're doing especially around the sixes format and competitions.

Abi: I think it was important to try and have someone within the organisation who had an eye on people during the initial lockdown period at the beginning of 2020 because we were all just like ‘What is going on?!’. 

We all moved online which we've never done before and people were working out of bedrooms, so it was important that as an organisation we tried to focus on the staff.

With no events to plan for, I was tasked with checking in with the staff, making sure they were all alright, and entertaining them; you think the number of quizzes I put together with help from staff members. We even walked to Spain and back!

It was all about trying to ensure that everyone was in a good space because it was really hard. I thought it was a good move from us as an organisation to focus more on this stuff.

Finally, as a bit of fun, if you were stranded on a desert island and you could take just one item with you, what item would you take with you and why?

Helen: I was thinking about this (probably a little bit too much) but you either want something that is going to help you get off the island or something that's going to make your stay there more enjoyable.

So, I landed on a penknife, because I feel like that would be really useful.

Abi: My initial thought, and I think I might stay with it, was a cup of some sort because I could use it as like a scooper to make yourself a toilet. And then I could like use it to eat out of and drink out of.

Helen: But Abi if you’ve got a pen knife, you can make your own cup.

Abi: Very true, but then I thought, oh, do I just want a picture of people that I love? That's really lame, but then I could see them all the time.

Helen: No, no, no, no. I would find that really hard because you’d just sit there staring at the picture. Maybe a pillow?

Abi: That was the other one, yeah! I could go on.

Helen: There you go, there's a list for you.

Abi and Helen have nominated the Marketing & Communications department to be interviewed for March’s edition of Spotlight on…