Tom Brady again!

From Sport England Satisfaction survey

quote:
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As well as looking at the reasons why people leave, the reasons why people stay are interesting too. Finding out why your members enjoy coming to korfball and what they feel would improve their experience can be useful to understand what to do to retain players.
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I agree with Nicky. The reasons why people stay is as important if not more important than the reasons why they leave. Sport England did a survey measuring 'satisfaction with the quality of the sporting experience' across 46 sports every year (for the last 3 years).

They identify 10 different sporting 'domains' or areas of satisfaction:

Value for money
Performance
Social/belonging
Facilities and playing environment
Logistics/organisation
People and staff
Diversion/release
Exertion and fitness
Officiating
Coaching

Each sport is different of course but I'd like to highlight some of the findings from basketball and netball.
Basketball report can be found here: PDF download
Netball report can be found here: PDF download

Within these reports they identify 'Drivers of satisfaction' for different types of participants. The section of most interest to us I believe is 'The key domains and questions to focus on to increase overall satisfaction among club members'.

Netball
Release and diversion
Exertion and fitness
Social aspects

Basketball
Release and diversion
People and staff
Performance

Looking through these results I would say that the 5 areas identified by combining these lists are representative of most importance factors contributing to korfballer satisfaction:

Release and diversion
The opportunities the sport gave me to relieve stress, unwind and get away from my everyday routine
The buzz/sense of exhilaration I got from doing my sport
Feeling better about myself having taken part in my sport

Exertion and fitness
The sport's contribution to my overall health
The opportunities to improve my fitness levels by participating in my sport
The opportunities to get the levels of physical exertion from my sport that were right for me

Social aspects
The opportunities for me to socialise through my sport
That I could participate in my sport without feeling embarrassed or awkward
The opportunities the sport gave me to feel part of a wider group or team

People and staff
How welcome I was made to feel by the people who organise or run my sport
The attitude towards families and young people in my sport
The competence of the paid professional staff I came into contact with in my sport

Performance
The opportunities I had to compete at a level that suited my abilities
The opportunities I had to learn, practice and develop skills in my sport
The opportunities I had to progress and improve in my sport

The report also includes some quotes which may sound familiar to all of us:
'The one thing that is a problem with netball in my opinion is the quality of umpiring and that it doesn't always seem to be consistent which sometimes spoils the game (Netball club member)'

'Netball has brought my family together. My daughter plays, I now play and my husband umpires!! The only thing I would like to see is the improvement in the conditions of the courts. (Netball club member)'

'Overall, over the last 12 months, I have really enjoyed my sporting experiences and felt like I have really progressed in my sport which has helped me to enjoy it even more. (Netball talent pool)'

'The improvements to facilities is great but has also made playing the sport much more expensive as clubs are charged high rates for facilities (Basketball club member)'

'Pay as you go session with coaching and mini tournaments or joining in with the local league would be FAB (Basketball club member)'

'One of the main problems is, that we don't have venues. Our 'home' venue is more than an hours drive away, we train in a hall that is too small, it's expensive for everyone and there is hardly any teams to compete against, but a very wide range of abilities within teams (Handball club member)'

'Youth development helps generate more teams/competition, but we need somewhere to play the sport, too.... decent sized sports halls. It is very frustrating to play in a non-heated sports hall in the middle of winter, or only having 2-3 venues available in the whole of south England that have the right size, some of which are very expensive (Handball club member)'

Korfball does not stand alone in the problems it is undergoing! It would be great to get involed in this survey to allow us to benchmark ourselves against other sports.