Defining your vision, aims, and objectives and putting in place a clear plan of action, a strategy, is essential in ensuring the effective use of your time and other precious resources. These don’t need to be overly complex documents, but they should be rooted in a clear understanding of what you exist to achieve and set out the actions required to help you get there.
At Heaward Solutions we do a lot of strategy development work, this includes:
Building effective strategies can be a lot of work. It requires extensive research and consultation to consider all key factors and engage a wide range of stakeholders. Once the strategy is agreed upon, it must be accompanied by a clear action plan. This must detail how the required actions will progress, when each will happen, what resources are needed, where these come from, and who will be responsible.
Whilst it is important that trustees and senior leaders are involved in the strategy development process, the nature of the work involved can be daunting. Often this results in inertia or even the failure to move a project forward. In time this can lead to ‘mission drift’ and cause a wide range of significant problems. This is where our support can prove invaluable. We can help you map out the right process for your organisation to develop the required strategy. Then, we can walk you through each step, taking on the heavy lifting, and ensuring that you create a strategy that you can be proud of.
Training is always tailored to your needs. Topics can include:
In every case, we also offer access to follow up advice and support to those who attend training we deliver.
We also have partners who specialise in the delivery of a range of accredited training including: First Aid; Child Protection; Mental Health Awareness; Health and Safety; and Customer Care.
Our training is designed to meet your needs and delivered at a time and location that works for you. This could be online, at your own venue, as part of a conference or somewhere else. We can even find and book a suitable venue.
Training is delivered through interactive workshops, these can vary in length from 30 minutes to several days depending on your requirements. Working with our partner Edenfield, if required we can develop nationally accredited training.
" Andrew Heaward’s Income Generation workshop was a fantastic addition to the Table Tennis England National Club, Coach and Volunteer Conference. It was clear that Andrew had taken the time to consider the initial brief and adapted the content to the need of the audience. We have received an outstanding level of service throughout our work with Andrew; from initial consultation, through to delivery and follow up. We hope we can continue to work with Heaward Sports Limited to support table tennis clubs in the future. "
" I have recently had the opportunity of working with Andrew, receiving his bid writing training course.
Andrew's wealth of knowledge and experience became immediately apparent to me, offering invaluable insights and learnings in successful grant researching and writing. From theoretical learnings to practical advice such as directing me to helpful online resources, Andrew had it all covered!
The three hour training session was delivered in such a way that I remained engaged and actively participated throughout. Andrew's method has proved extremely helpful when putting my new skills and knowledge to the test.
I highly recommend Andrew's services and look forward to continue working with him. "
With an extensive experience of delivering exciting events of all sizes and securing major awards, few consultants are as well placed as Heaward Solutions to help you raise the profile of your organisation, venue or location and successfully engage people through the use of events and awards.
Whatever the scale of your ambition, from involving a few hundred people to many thousands on one or many different days we can help you secure, develop and promote the right event for your needs.
Previously we have been involved in organising events as diverse as the Tour of Britain, Tour Series and Women’s Tour Cycle races, UK Corporate Games, Corporate Cups for several different sports, Paralympic events, 10k road races, fun runs, triathlons and community festivals.
We have good links with the organisations behind many major national and international events such as the UK and World Corporate Games, Tour of Britain, Women’s Tour and Tour Series cycle races.
Using these relationships we can help facilitate detailed discussions about attracting one of these or other exciting high profile events. Once you have concluded negotiations to bring the event of your choice to your location we can also assist in planning for its delivery.
For charities and other organisations looking to deliver events to raise funds or their organisation’s profile, our experience of successfully developing, promoting and delivering significant events such as 10k races, triathlons, opening/closing ceremonies, celebration events, launches and smaller community festivals is extremely valuable.
This ensures that we are well placed to help you fully develop your ideas and then deliver them in a safe and professional manner.
We can help you develop a detailed event plan, something that’s crucial to delivering an effective event and which ensures all the key factors are accounted for. We can also help organise the event, covering everything from staffing requirements through to health and safety and marketing. We can also ensure that the relevant third parties have been consulted and any key permissions like road closures obtained.
Our extensive bid writing skills combined with diverse project-based experience and a close relationship with ACES Europe, place us in a unique position. We are the only UK based consultancy to have team members with direct experience of working on two successful European City of Sport bids/programmes. These are the Stoke-on-Trent bid, 2016 programme delivery and legacy work, and the 2019 Milton Keynes European City of Sport bid for designation in 2020. This makes us the go-to people in the UK if you are considering a bid for any of the following awards:
We are also able to help you make nominations and develop bids for other awards such as industry awards and other forms of recognition such as quality awards like QUEST.
We offer a range of services designed to help and support organisations who want to make their community better. Our experience and approach means we can offer the advice you need on an affordable basis. Our services are detailed below and we work right across the UK mainland.
Do you have a great idea? Unless it’s for a small and relatively low-risk project it’s always sensible to undertake a feasibility study to make sure that your idea has a good chance of success before you invest a lot of time, energy and money into it. For a more significant project, it is wise to have this prepared by someone from outside of your organisation who can offer a different perspective and thoroughly test out your ideas. We are experts in preparing quality feasibility studies. Where necessary we have links to other specialists like architects, accountants, web designers and solicitors who can help.
Whether you need to develop a community centre, sports facility or venue for the delivery of other services, we can provide the support and guidance you need. This includes helping to identify and resolve the challenges of finding a site, obtaining planning permission and ensuring your plans can be financially sustainable.
We are often involved in projects from bidding to opening. This area of our work has included developing all sorts of facilities. Larger projects included new swimming pools, sports halls and artificial turf pitches. We have also worked on men's sheds projects, community cafes, workshops, community cinema schemes, security fencing, toilet blocks, portacabins and other more modest schemes. Projects have been located at public leisure centres, commercial premises, sports clubs and schools and community venues.
We have lots of experience of what works and what doesn’t. This means we can help you make sure your project is well designed and smoothly delivered. Whatever your objective, putting an effective plan in place is a vital first step to ensuring success.
We are experts at in helping organisations develop and set out a clear financial model. This is essential for any organisations long term success and also helps ensure potential funders have the confidence required to invest by showing that your project is sustainable.
Any effective project must be grounded in an understanding of the other services in the area, any competitors, local and national policy and most importantly the needs and desires of its target community. All of this information is vital to ensuring your scheme is well designed and also essential in building strong funding applications. At Heaward Solutions, we have many years of experience in this kind of research and can prepare anything from the simplest community survey through to complex evidence of need reports.
We have worked with many organisations to conduct face to face, online and social media-based surveys and run other community consultation events. Once these are complete we have then prepared a detailed analysis report for presentation to potential funders. This has often been vital to helping make the case for investment. Recent consultation projects for clients include work for:
Deciding if you should operate as an unincorproated group, charity, CIO, CIC or indeed one of the numerous other options available is extremely complex and getting this wrong has a range of consequences. Whilst we can't replace advice from your solicitor or accountant, we have a unique understanding of how this important choice impacts the risks of running a not for profit group and also your ability to access grants and other funding.
Community asset transfer (CAT) was introduced to provide a way for groups to apply to move the responsibility for managing public assets from Local Authorities to communities. It can offer a great way for groups to take control but it is not without its challenges or risks. Our team can help groups navigate this beneficial, but often complex process.
We aim to provide the help you need. This includes sharing our insight so you avoid costly mistakes. Our experience includes the transfer of public buildings including sports facilities and other services such as playing fields.
Once transfer is complete we can also help you secure rate relief, grants and other funding to help run and improve your new facility.
Our experience includes supporting complex Community Asset Transfer proposals for large scale public facilities. Key examples include the development and management of Stoke-on-Trent City Councils scheme for the self-management of sports pitches and the successful transfer of the Hardman Football Development Centre to Milton United FC and work on the transfer of the Burslem Gymnastics Centre.
Not every young person wants to go to a traditional sports club. More often than not those who don’t are the young people that their parents and the wider community have the greatest concerns about. Providing other services and opportunities that this group of young people want can be tough. But with the right advice and funding this is still possible. This kind of project are also often very popular with local residents and the wider community and can help reconnect young people with their community.
We have created several major projects working with challenging young people. These include the UK’s largest StreetGames programme, as well as innovative, award winning projects such as the Stoke-on-Trent Closing the Gap Programme. This ensures that we are well placed to advise on this complex topic, one which is often right at the heart of community needs.
In the past we have helped groups such as community centres use sport as a tool to support and engage at-risk and socially-excluded young people and tackle issues of antisocial behaviour.
We have extensive experience of working with local residents associations and community groups, often in deprived areas, to meet local needs by securing funds and delivering projects. These projects have often focused on offering activities for young people and families. Common goals have been to increase physical activity, address poverty and combat antisocial behaviour.
HeawardSports Ltd is a company I have worked with on several projects now and I have found that they...
I have had the privilege of working with Andrew Heaward from Heaward Sports Ltd for the past 2 ye...
I have recently had the opportunity of working with Andrew, receiving his bid writing training course...
During your career path you really hope to cross paths with people like Andrew. During my time with...
Andrew recently supported us with writing a large report for some funders. We were well aware that this was...
I was introduced to Andrew by a trusted source who told me that there are few grant funding ..