Every Body Moves Passes 10,000 listings.
Recently we passed a huge milestone in the number of inclusive and accessible opportunities available via the activity finder on the Every Body Moves website.
We asked Barry Lloyd, Every Body Moves - Programme Manager why this matters, and what others can do to help us continue growing the number of sessions available ensuring even more disabled people across the whole of the UK, are able to find opportunities that work for them to be active at home or in their local area.
What does it mean to go over 10,000 inclusive and accessible sessions on Every Body Moves?
It’s a hugely significant milestone that means there is already double the number of listings available through the Every Body Moves activity finder since the last Paralympic Games! We’re on track to grow this number even further ahead of what will see a huge surge in interest for the Paris Paralympics this Summer. By ensuring more inclusive opportunities are available and discoverable across more parts of the UK, we can help more disabled people to find more relevant opportunities for them to become more active. We hear from the disabled community that 8/10 disabled people consider sport and physical activity as an important within their life. However, when you pair that with research from Activity Alliance, we know disabled people are more likely to say they haven't been able to access provision in their local area. Only 4/10 disabled people feel they have the opportunity to be as active as they want to be, compared to almost 7/10 of non-disabled people.
Why should organisations bother listing?
Our audience tell us that having access to high quality, detailed information allows them to make informed choices about how they choose to be active is crucial. Without the key information we all like to know before deciding to join a session, along with details on accessibility, what to expect from the session the first time you go and the support available, organisations are unlikely to attract more disabled people to take up their offer. When you consider that amounts to 24% of the population, that’s a huge proportion of the community that’s potentially being excluded from taking part or accessing an organisations offer. As for the promotional benefits of listing on Every Body Moves, aside from it costing nothing to list, we know that 75% of visitors to our website perform a search for a session near them. We currently see over 7,000 people visit our website each month and expect to see a huge surge in interest in the lead up and during the Paralympic Games later this year, making it a no brainer in terms of a marketing opportunity directly targetting the disabled community with opportunities to move.
How can organisations ensure their sessions are listed on the Every Body Moves activity finder?
There’s two ways this can be done. And both tap into the Open Active initiative which is designed to make it easier for organisations to reach their audience and for people searching for activities to find what’s going on near them.
For smaller organisations who don’t use a booking system, Every Body Moves is a free and simple way to reach the disabled community with your session details. Simply visit our website and register to list your sessions directly. This is a free, accessible and simple way to begin showcasing sessions within the Open Active initiative, as not only will we show your session details on our interactive activity finder, but other activity finders can also pick up the listings automatically and advertise them to their audiences, which is the beauty of listing via Open Active.
The second way is for organisations who do use a booking system and simply involves selecting a few options to check if it aligns with Open Active and ensuring that your listings have detailed accessibility information relevant to our audience. More information on sharing your booking system data with Open Active is available here.
What’s next for Every Body Moves?
We’re really excited for the year ahead culminating with the Paralympic Games in August and September. But for us, our focus is on making sure that the surge in interest around disability sport is harnessed meaningfully for the benefit of the wider disabled community. So accessible grassroots opportunities to participate in sport and physical activity are given the spotlight they deserve. To support this agenda, we’ll be hosting a range of events for the providers of sport and physical activity to help improve their offering for disabled people or if they don’t currently have one to take practical steps to start one. There’s currently no getting away from the accessibility gap that disabled people face when looking for opportunities to become more active compared to non-disabled people, and we want to play our part in ensuring that this gap is significantly reduced and ultimately removed. There’s a lot of work to do across the sector to achieve this, but by working in collaboration and addressing issues and challenges head on, we are confident in improving the opportunities disabled people have to become more active across the whole of the UK.