About Sport Aurora
Sport Aurora began as the Aurora Community Sport Council in 2005 when a group of representatives of seven Community Sport Organizations came together to discuss challenges and opportunities facing predominantly youth sport in Aurora. Town. After the initial meeting, these Organizations felt that there were common interests and reasons to continue meeting to develop a plan that would help all Organizations in their missions of providing high-quality sport programs to the citizens.
In 2006 The Aurora Community Sport Council implemented the first Municipal All-Candidate’s Meeting at the Royal Canadian Legion and this event brought not only the sport and recreation agenda to the municipal politician’s attention, but brought together over 300 people to listen to the Candidate’s opinions about sport and recreation and the value sport and recreation was to the Town.
In 2007 the Aurora Community Sport Council developed a Strategic Plan that included a Mission, Vision and Beliefs statement and was incorporated as a non-share (not-for-profit) corporation with its own Constitution.
As membership grew so did support from the business community and so an affiliate membership category was added so that local businesses or organizations that had business or other relationships with sport were invited to join as ex-officio members.
In the past five years Sport Aurora has grown from the seven original Sport Organizations to now eighteen sport Organizations in Aurora. In that time Sport Aurora has participated in the development of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan and Pricing Policies that are now in place with the Town. The Town has called upon the membership numerous times to provide advice with respect to the direction of sport and Sport Aurora has now become the “voice” of Sport in the Town.
urrently Sport Aurora represents the 14 Sport organizations with a volunteer base of over 2000 and a player base that approaches 7500 people from the ages of 3 to 8 years of age in both genders.
In 2010 a 2nd All-Candidate’s Meeting was just a successful and the sport agenda in Town was clearly an important part of the election. In the same year Sport Aurora worked closely with a local publisher to bring amateur sport stories and celebration to the Community through Sport in Aurora Magazine that is published six times per year.
The partnership between the Town and Sport Aurora continues to grow and as a result Sport Aurora has been given a permanent seat on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee. This year Sport Aurora has been offered physical space to set up their offices in the Town Parks and Recreation Office at Town Hall and will begin to operate from that location in January of 2012.
November 2011 is a turning point for the Organization as the Ontario Trillium foundation awarded Sport Aurora with a four-year $204,000.00 grant. This will allow Sport Aurora to implement the following:
1) The Aurora Sport Hall of Fame will be developed where past and present sport excellence will be honoured.
2) A Sport Volunteer Recognition Dinner will be semi-annually implemented where the best of our sport volunteers will be recognized for their outstanding contribution to the Town.
3) A Breakfast of Champions Event will be implemented where players who achieve provincial or better championship status will be honoured for their commitment to their sport and our Town.
4) AWomen in Coaching Program project will be undertaken to encourage females of all ages and in all sports to become certified through the Canadian National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) so that volunteer participation will grow and women will be encouraged not only to participate in sport but to lead others as exemplars.
5) A Sport Aurora Web Site will be developed that will become the touch-point for sport in Aurora and will among many things, display an organized calendar of events for all sport and provide common information for all members of the Community with respect to Sport.
