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  • 2 years ago

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00:00 I'm Nick Heartland and today I have the pleasure of talking to my 1986 Wales
00:06 Commonwealth Games team-mate Chris Jenkins. Chris has been a member of the
00:11 Commonwealth Games Federation for many years and is standing as the first ever
00:17 candidate from Wales for the post of President of the Commonwealth Games
00:21 Federation. So Chris, tell me a little bit about your sporting and business
00:27 background. Nice to see you Nick, great to see you again, thank you very much for
00:31 inviting me here. So yes, 1986 competitor along with you in the Commonwealth Games.
00:36 I also have 24 years experience of business working in the City of London
00:40 investing in mutual funds and pension funds and managing teams all around the
00:46 world. My Bill of Rothschilds was sold early 2000s and I then moved back to
00:52 Wales and became involved with Commonwealth Games Wales where I was CEO
00:55 for 16 years. Finished with Wales just at the end of Birmingham, took a step down
01:01 and now I'm Vents Lecturer at the University of South Wales and I've
01:05 literally submitted my PhD thesis, spent five years researching how to make the
01:10 Commonwealth Games more sustainable. So you've got a huge wealth of experience
01:15 across the games and from the world of business. What excites you about the
01:20 games these days? Yes, it's come a long way since 1986. I think really looking at
01:25 it, it's much more than an event. We've moved away from just being a sports
01:29 event, it's become a movement and I think that's what really excites me now
01:33 looking, not only just back over the recent years but also looking forward. So
01:37 first of all it's the fantastic inclusivity that we have with para sport
01:42 being included in the games but also you've got this fantastic cultural
01:45 diversity of all the teams coming from all around the Commonwealth from some
01:50 very small countries, just a few thousand, all the way up to the largest countries
01:54 in the world with India. So a huge range of people's experiences, cultures,
02:00 languages all coming together, a family reuniting. It's become much more than a
02:05 sporting event then? Absolutely yes, I couldn't agree more. It really has
02:09 grown, it's grown over the years. You can have a policy, you can have initiative
02:13 but sometimes you've got to be proactive to make things happen. So yes we had an
02:17 integrated para sport event but how do we get more people to get involved in
02:22 the games? So we've run initiatives such as GAPS which has really helped
02:28 bring athletes on who are probably being ignored within their own communities. So
02:34 one of the reasons that we do something like GAPS is because it also helps us
02:39 find host cities. It excites governments because you have an initiative around it
02:44 that breaks down barriers. So I'll tell you a story of really why we do it. So
02:49 the first pilot project was in Oceania 2018. So Friana was on Vanuatu. Vanuatu
02:56 had never won a medal. She was ignored because she was disabled. The GAPS
03:00 program treated her as a person. That's what she says, you know, what did it bring?
03:04 You treated me as a person. Trained her up in sport, she got better. She then
03:09 competed in Gold Coast, won a bronze medal, went home to Vanuatu. First
03:14 medalist they'd ever had, a female and disabled. A week later a lady walks into
03:20 a school holding the hand of her disabled daughter and says to the head
03:24 teacher, does this now mean my daughter can come to school? That is why we do it.
03:31 It breaks down barriers, changes perceptions and that is the real power
03:35 of the Commonwealth Sport Event. What a fabulous, empowering story that is.
03:39 Incredible change that it's brought there. Unbelievable. All major sporting
03:45 events face challenges in this fast-changing world. What do you see the
03:50 Commonwealth Games challenges as in 2023? Yeah, it's a really good question because
03:55 we do face challenges and I think we face a really serious challenge at the
03:59 moment. We don't have a host for 26. We're working really hard on that at the
04:04 moment to get a hosting for 26. But I think the fundamental problem is we need,
04:08 as do quite a lot of multi-sports events, need to become much more sustainable. We
04:13 need to change the model. So it's not just about bringing down the cost and
04:17 the scale of the games and using existing facilities, it's the other side
04:21 of the equation we need to look at as well, which is where the host, host
04:25 communities and the governments that support them, get what they want out,
04:29 get their value. So you're looking at increased value for the athletes, value
04:34 for the Commonwealth Sport Movement, but also value for the local communities.
04:37 But I think we have to recognise that we need to raise the value of that and help
04:41 cities make sure that they achieve their goal at the same time as putting on a
04:45 world-class event for our members and the athletes. So we need to find a more
04:49 sustainable model going forward. You're standing for the post of President. What
04:56 do you think you personally can bring to that role? Well, strong leadership, really
05:01 confident, strong leadership. So I've spent many years talking with our
05:05 members, understanding their issues, their challenges and their aspirations.
05:10 From the very small, just a few thousand people, isolated on an island, to the
05:15 largest. So I understand where they're coming from and I engage with them and
05:19 they'll continue to do that as President. And that gives you the confidence then
05:23 to know that the membership are behind you, that you've got the right answers
05:27 and that empowers both the members but also empowers me to take us through and
05:32 drive the movement forward. If you're successful in your candidacy for
05:37 President, what would success look like for you in four years time? Wow, great
05:42 question. So yeah, so when President, what I will do is I will make sure we move to
05:48 a sustainable model for the Commonwealth Games, that we will understand what every
05:54 CGA can offer. I also want to make sure that we have a different financial model
05:58 for the CGF. From my business experience I can tell you we're far too reliant on
06:04 just host city fees. We need to diversify our income stream, we need to bring in more
06:09 partners. That would allow us to strengthen the programs we do but also
06:13 continue to support CGA's to help their development. Because I know from speaking
06:18 to so many small and mid-sized CGA's, they desperately need our help. Although I
06:22 also want and would like that over four years that people would look back and
06:26 say, wow that was a really strong leadership. We moved to exactly the place
06:31 we wanted to go to as a movement. Everyone's voices were heard, everybody
06:36 felt they participated in the movement, taking the Games forward, taking the
06:40 movement forward, moving forward together. Thank you very much Chris for revealing
06:45 your vision of the future of the Commonwealth Games to us and it just
06:49 remains to me to wish you the best of luck at the election. November the 15th I
06:54 think is the date when you will be standing as Wales's first ever candidate
06:59 for the post of President of the Commonwealth Games Federation. Thank you
07:03 very much Nick, thank you.
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