SIR - Regarding the Herts Community Sports Summit Your readers might not be aware of the fact that there are over 2,500 sports clubs in Hertfordshire, all powered by voluntary effort. Indeed, sports volunteering accounts for 26% of all volunteering in

SIR - Regarding the Herts Community Sports Summit

Your readers might not be aware of the fact that there are over 2,500 sports clubs in Hertfordshire, all powered by voluntary effort. Indeed, sports volunteering accounts for 26% of all volunteering in England - with over 1.9m people giving up at least one hour of their time each week. This is the equivalent to a full time workforce of over 80,000 employees.

These clubs make a massive contribution to community life, positively impacting on health, education, social inclusion, community cohesion and even economic prosperity. In many cases they provide the glue that binds our communities; they provide the hidden social workers, and are at the heart of personal development programmes for large numbers of the young people of Hertfordshire.

To assist these clubs, we are staging our second annual Community Sports Summit, at the Fielder Centre, Hatfield Business Park on Monday, April 20, commencing at 6pm. The summit will feature a mixture of interactive workshops, and topical presentations aimed at assisting sports clubs to access available funding and to learn from a range of recognised leaders from the community sports sector.

Attendance at the event is FREE and a cordial invitation is extended to any of your readers, who are involved in the running of their local sports club, to join us for what promises to be an interesting and enjoyable evening.

Further details of this event are available from the Herts Sports Partnership website www.sportinherts.org.uk, and to reserve a place at the Summit, they should contact me, John O'Callaghan, email: j.d.ocallaghan@herts.ac.uk Telephone 01707 281009.

John D O'Callaghan

Club, coach & sports development manager