Brisbane Community Sport Forum small first step towards Brisbane 2032 considerations

A group of some 30 people spent the morning of Saturday, 26 November listening, thinking and talking about what the Brisbane 2032 Games could mean for community sport in the State capital before and after the Olympic and Paralympic events. 

Conducted by QSport with support from the Brisbane City Council as a component of the QSport/Council major partnership, the group selected to participate included Deputy Mayor Cr. Krista Adams, Cr. Sarah Hutton and staff, QSport Board members Ben Callard and Gail Torrens and staff, and importantly representatives of a range of Brisbane sporting clubs who heard inputs from a number of external parties engaged with sport before breaking into smaller groups for discussions on challenges and opportunities the Brisbane 2032 Games will serve up for local community sport. 

Facilitated by outgoing QSport CEO Peter Cummiskey and QSport sponsor the Queensland Cricketers Club, the four-hour session opens the way for further Council/sport sector collaboration over coming years relevant not only to Brisbane on how to maintain and enhance community sport pre and post Games. 

Insights from the session included that Brisbane in a number of ways is better positioned than some Olympic cities of the past 35 years to deliver not only successful Games but also, in relative terms at least, sustainable post Games scenarios provided the level of collaborative planning and implementation of strategies is undertaken, particularly with the longer lead time for Brisbane than other cities. 

Further, the notion of a civic pride and engagement enhancement program with bi-partisan political support and promotion via positively inclined media is worth pursuing.

So, too, is incentivising existing and future volunteers in sport here to not only participate in the delivery of the Games but to stay on past the Games to pave the way for others to take a turn at delivering ongoing sustainable local sport and recreation experiences for anticipated the significant number of new arrivals in greater Brisbane over the next 20 years.