What You Can Do: Facilities

• Become a True Sport Facility by having facility management pass a motion to join the True Sport Movement.
• Add your facility to the growing list of communities, groups and individuals across Canada who believe in the power of good sport by completing the online form at www.truesport.ca/declare.
• Tell your facility users, local sport and community groups, as well as residents, about your commitment to True Sport and share the True Sport Principles with them:
  • Add a True Sport logo and link on your website.
  • Include information about True Sport in your newsletters.
  • Prominently display True Sport banners in your facility.
  • Use social networking to spread the word about how you are living True Sport and about True Sport events and activities.
• Share information about True Sport with the sport and recreation groups that use your facility and encourage them to join the True Sport Movement.
• Adopt the True Sport Principles as your facility’s Code of Conduct. Prominently display the True Sport Principles for Sport for all users to see.
• Host a True Sport information session for facility users to ensure that they understand their role in creating a positive, safe and welcoming sport environment.
• Over the course of a week or two, invite facility users (athletes, parents, coaches, etc.) to sign True Sport banners to demonstrate their commitment to the True Sport Principles. Proudly hang the signed banners in the facility.
• Create a True Sport decal to affix on facility entrance and exit points.
• Create a True Sport rink board, stencil the True Sport logo on the ice, or paint the True Sport Principles on dressing room or gymnasium walls or in play areas.
• Encourage events hosted in your facility become True Sport Events and to incorporate the True Sport Principles into their event. Suggest that they include information about True Sport in their event materials.
• Create a True Sport display case where facility users can showcase how they are practising good sport.
• Host a True Sport Day in your facility. Donate access to your facility to community sport groups and invite residents to take advantage of the opportunity to try different sports at no cost.
• Create a facility maintenance program where facility users can help with facility projects or maintenance for a period of time as a way to ‘give back’ (maintenance may include clean-up of dressing rooms, cleaning of common areas, etc.).
• Provide opportunities for a wide range of participants, including those with disabilities, to access and use your facility.
• As part of your facility booking plan, ensure equal access for under-represented groups.
• As part of your facility booking plan, give priority to groups/programs that are members of True Sport or that are deliberate in their efforts to offer values-based sport opportunities (i.e. those that focus collectively on fun, fairness, inclusion and striving for excellence).
• Develop partnerships with non-sport community groups to create opportunities for participation in sport and recreation for those who may not otherwise have the chance to do so.
• Incorporate the True Sport Principles and True Sport language into user contracts and permits.
• Establish policies and procedures to empower staff to deal with inappropriate behaviour and/or facility users who do not abide by the facility’s Code of Conduct.
• House an equipment drop-off box in cooperation with local sport groups to encourage the recycling of gently used equipment or work with multiple sport groups to host an equipment swap program.
• Recognize staff members and/or facility users whose actions embody the True Sport Principles. Feature each recipient on a recognition board or in a newsletter.
• Identify your commitment to good – values-based – sport as an important part of your corporate culture and a selling point when seeking sponsorship opportunities and/or corporate partnerships. Align your organization with sponsors and partners who value sport as a public asset and understand the power of good sport.