In 2023, the Ottawa Sport Council is celebrating its 10th anniversary! First and foremost, we’d like to thank community sport participants and our partners for collaborating with us to create positive experiences in sport and reduce barriers to participation. The Ottawa Sport Council is recognized by the City of Ottawa as the leading voice for amateur sport across the city. OSC serves 300,000+ sport participants from more than 750 community sport organizations.
Over the last decade, the Ottawa Sport Council has proud to lead a number of lasting initiatives, all with the goal to create positive experiences in sport, where everyone has the opportunity to participate. We continue to work closely with community sport participants to drive the most impact from our work, and we strive to work with partner organizations that share our vision for sport as a tool for social inclusion and a community builder.
In celebrating 10 years of the Ottawa Sport Council, we’d like to highlight our milestone resources and events. As we look back on the last 10 years, we are excited and honoured to continue this work in our community.
The Ottawa Sport Summit
Since 2014, the Ottawa Sport Council has hosted the Ottawa Sport Summit for community sport participants to learn and create new connections in the sector. Each year, this free event aims to provide educational opportunities as well as networking opportunities. Educational topics for the Ottawa Sport Summit are selected each year based on the needs of our community.
In 2022, the Ottawa Sport Summit focused on creating diverse and inclusive sport environments for community sport participants. More than 70 individuals with a wide variety of backgrounds gathered to identify the barriers to participation by mapping the participant experience (watch here). Last year, the Ottawa Sport Council was fortunate to receive funding from Canadian Tire Jumpstart to host the Ottawa Sport Summit in partnership with INclusion INcorporated.
The Concussion Education Video
In partnership with Parachute Canada and SIRC (Sport Information Resource Centre), this video is designed to equip coaches, players, parents, board members, staff, and volunteers alike with the knowledge of how to apply the 4 R’s of concussion management (Recognize, Remove, Refer, Return) in a sport setting. The information provided in this video is complaint with Rowan’s Law legislation. After shifting to a virtual delivery format in 2020, the video has been viewed more than 850 times. We were appreciative to receive funding for this initiative from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
The Ottawa Return to Play Roadmap
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Ottawa Sport Council stewarded a community-wide return to play roadmap aimed at inspiring confidence, reassuring participants and supporting Ottawa’s active return to sport. Based on guidelines from public health officials at the community, provincial and federal levels, the roadmap provides a selection of practical tools and resources to ensure that sport rolls out consistently and carefully, based on the best available information.
For this project, the Ottawa Sport Council worked with sport participants from 70+ local sport organizations and the City of Ottawa. The Ottawa Return to Play Roadmap has been viewed more than 3,200 times since its rollout.
The Ottawa Safe Sport Toolkit
Under the leadership of the Ottawa Sport Council, the Ottawa Safe Sport Toolkit was developed in collaboration with 12 local sport organizations to ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all participants including coaches, athletes, official, administrators and volunteers.
The Ottawa Safe Sport Toolkit contains more than 30 custom resources designed for community sport, including a Safe Sport Policy 101 Video (watch here) and an Athlete and Coach Expectations Webinar (watch here). To date, the toolkit has been viewed more than 3,000 times. The toolkit was developed with funding from Ontario Trillium Foundation in partnership with subject matter experts from Sport Law.
Ottawa Sport Council Foundation Endowment Fund
The Ottawa Sport Council Foundation Endowment fund aims to award grant funding to two community sport programs in Ottawa that embrace the seven True Sport Principles and aim to reduce barriers to participate. Since 2014, the Ottawa Sport Council has been working with the True Sport Foundation and the Ottawa Community Foundation to deliver funds that support the elimination of barriers to sport participation for equity deserving groups.
This funding has created numerous sport participation opportunities, including the City of Ottawa’s Ringette for All Program and Active Newcomer Youth Ottawa’s Coping with Mental Health through Soccer Program.
The Ottawa Sport Council would like to thank the Ottawa sport community, partner organizations, and our funders for their collaboration over the last 10 years. With your support, we are thrilled to have been able to create more positive experiences in sport in our community.