WSA Annual Report 2021-2022
The Welsh Sports Association (WSA) has released its Annual Report for 2021-2022!
The WSA has had an eventful year in which we’ve bid farewell to a long-serving CEO in Victoria Ward and welcomed a new CEO in Andrew Howard, who arrived in August after nearly two decades at the Football Association of Wales.
The WSA also launched its new strategy at our member event in June. Among familiar faces across the sector who hadn’t seen each other in a little while, we detailed to a well-filled audience of our members at Sophia Gardens members how we’d continue to support the sport & leisure sector with three main strategic pillars in mind: strategic aims; to Collaborate, to Develop, and to Promote.
We enjoyed success in a variety of areas throughout the year; one of which being our Annual Perception Report, in which 100% agreed that the WSA provides high-quality services and 91% stated the WSA is a great organisation to work with while it also marked the need for our organisation to improve its commitment to the Welsh language.
With this in mind, the WSA is happy to have published a Welsh language version of our Annual Report, accessible below.
The WSA has also continued to work with UK organisations to be a leader in advocacy, as well as building resilience – as we’ve seen our membership grow even wider, we’ve made advancements to the resources we offer, introduced new services for members to take advantage of (the first two packages of Membership Plus, Finance and Advocacy, were launched in April), and struck new partnership deals as well as renew existing ones to enable our members to become stronger and more resilient.
The WSA is looking forward to carrying on its work to support the sport and leisure sector over the coming year and has outlined priorities in the Annual Report.
Among them is to attract seed-funding for the Welsh Sports Foundation to enable its development and launch in order for it to start supporting future generations, while we will also look to recognise and promote the initiatives and successes of WSA members, while also communicating best-practice models and strategies via the WSA Sport & Leisure Industry Awards!
Andre Howard, WSA CEO, said:
“It has been a real pleasure to meet many of our members since I joined the WSA in August. Our support in recent years has been invaluable and this will continue in 2023 as our sector faces new challenges. I can commit to our members that during this challenging time, we are here to support you with advocacy and outstanding shared services – together we can be a resilient sector in Wales.
“Sport is for everybody and our objective to launch the Welsh Sports Foundation in the forthcoming year will contribute to a healthier and more equal Wales. And finally, we recognise from our independent survey that we can do better with our commitment to the Welsh language. And we will. It is a priority for us over the next twelve months to help to create a thriving Welsh language culture throughout the sports sector. More information will be released to members soon. We thank you for your support and really look forward to working with you and helping in any way we can.”
Please visit our Governance Documents page to find more.
English