Sarah Albon, General Manager of Community at the Geelong Football Club shared some of the key lessons she learnt at the 2018 LBG Conference in Melbourne. Sarah was one of the Social Impact Storytellers at the Conference talking about their community program: Healthy Heroes.

What did you take away from the LBG Annual Conference?
One of the key things I learnt at the LBG Annual Conference was about the power of understanding your social impact and communicating that to your key stakeholders.

How important is LBG for sporting organisations?
As a sporting club it’s really important to understand what we’re doing in the community and what impact we’re making, and LBG gives you that level of understanding. It also gives us a point of difference from being a sporting club doing great things in the community, to a sporting club understanding our impact in the community.

Describe the Healthy Heroes program?
Healthy Heroes is an engaging, interactive and exciting educational program aimed at Year 3-4 students featuring our players with a focus on physical activity, healthy eating, hydration, screen time and sleep. The program was developed in partnership with GMHBA and collaboration with Deakin University and encourages and inspires students to take positive action to protect and enhance their own health and wellbeing. The program was highly commended in the 2017 VicHealth Awards for promoting healthy eating.

How was the LBG Framework used to measure the program?
The LBG Framework was used throughout the process and mapped our impact. The program reached more than 11,000 students and saw a consistent increase in knowledge, particularly around fruit and vegetable consumption and hydration. The program encouraged three-quarters of students to take positive action to protect and enhance their own health and wellbeing.