Angling Trust Partnership Development Manager James Roche explains how these new resources for your club, fishery, school, charity, coaches or other organisations can help more people can take part and discover the peace, health and well-being benefits and challenges of angling…

After years of experience running angling events myself I know only too well that there are loads of things to think about if you want to help introduce the public to the wonderful world of angling. Don’t worry though as the Angling Trust‘s ‘Get Fishing‘ campaign can help make things easy with:

• Environment Agency fishing licence waivers – FREE one day licences for event attendees
• A ‘Get Fishing Event Guide’ – everything you need to run fun, safe friendly events
• Factsheets on Health & Safety, working with volunteers, inclusivity, accessibility, promotion and working with children
• Grant fund applications – cut through all that paperwork and red tape!
• Promotion – more profile, more members, more day ticket sales
• Event support – get your new anglers ready to start fishing
• AND more!

Fishing Licence Waivers:

Anyone over the age of 13 who goes fishing in freshwater rivers, streams, canals and stillwaters must have an Environment Agency fishing licence. That might seem a bit off-putting if you’re trying to organise an event just to give people a go at angling, but event organisers can apply for a free fishing licence “waiver” so that event attendees don’t require a fishing licence while they’re taking part. Contact me using [email protected] (north or east of England) or Dean Asplin at [email protected] (south of England). If your event’s participants are not in possession of a fishing licence or you do not have a waiver in place, anyone fishing risks prosecution and a hefty fine.

NEW: Event Guide 2020

We’ve completely overhauled our guide to running fishing events this year with a new improved document that makes it easy to understand how to plan and promote your event and what tackle, equipment and staffing you’ll need. The Get Fishing Event Guide is available for clubs, fisheries, charities, schools, coaches and other event organisers who join in and become Get Fishing event organisers. It’s downloadable HERE (13Mb PDF).

NEW: Factsheets and Case Studies

These are intended as supplements to the Get Fishing Even Guide and will help Get Fishing event organisers understand other aspects of running fishing events, and provide real-life examples from event organisers we work with who deliver Get Fishing events successfully. The factsheets and case studies currently available are:

• Health & Safety factsheet – 2Mb
• Making your event available to everyone factsheet– 2Mb
• Recruiting volunteers factsheet – 3Mb
• Social Media factsheet – 1Mb
• Working with children factsheet – 2Mb
• Barford Lakes case study – 7Mb

Grants and other funding applications

The Angling Trust Participation Team have years of experience helping clubs, fisheries, charities, schools, coaches and organisations access grants and equipment to help more people go fishing. We can also assist with Angling Improvement Fund applications which have outcomes that mean more people go fishing, more often. The Angling Improvement Fund was launched in January 2015 when £65,000 of fishing licence money was allocated for angling organisations to improve facilities, buy equipment, tackle predation and carry out other projects in support of the National Angling Strategy. Since then, almost £2m of fishing licence money has supported more than 450 angling projects worth an estimated £5m – a great give-back to angling!

Promotion of your events

When you become part of the Angling Trust’s Get Fishing campaign, you’ll join the hundreds of event organisers that have benefited from this ongoing project funded by the Environment Agency to introduce more people to fishing. So far over 70,000 newcomer anglers have given fishing a go and each year we promote about 800 fishing events with a free event listing, promotion in fishing and mainstream publications, videos, social media posts and advertising. Don’t miss out on this – being part of Get Fishing means a more visible profile for you, more visits to your events, club or fishery and that will inevitably lead to repeat visits, members or day ticket sales.

Event Support

We’ll help make sure that all your Get Fishing events run as smoothly as possible, even if you have never done this kind of thing before! Assistance can include: putting you in touch with a qualified and licenced angling coach, a site visit to explain how to prepare your venue to get ready for a fishing event, top-tips on making your event as successful and appealing as possible to newcomers and families and in some cases we can come along to your first events to help on the day. We’ll do as much as possible to help ensure your Get Fishing event is a hit with people from your area and even further afield.

Please do get in touch with me if you’ve got any questions, to find out about running fishing events in your local community or about a licence waiver for an event at your fishing venue. It would be great to hear from you!

James

James Roche
Partnership Development Manager (North), Angling Trust
Email me: [email protected]
Call, or leave a message: 07791 786 251

About James…

In his role as Partnership Development Manager for the Angling Trust James helps clubs, fisheries, schools, charities and other groups around England become part of our ‘Get Fishing’ campaign. The campaign is funded by the Environment Agency from rod licence money, organises events to get more people fishing more often and encourages non-anglers to give fishing a go. Tens of thousands of people have tried angling as a result of ‘Get Fishing’. Why not get involved too?

[email protected]
07791 786 251

More blogs from James:

• How fishing can solve isolation amongst the elderly: dean-asplin-fishing-solving-social-isolation-elderly
• Volunteering Excellence Award for Devon Angling Coach: volunteering-excellence-award-devon-angling-coach
• Come on – let’s get people fishing this autumn!: come-on-lets-get-people-fishing-this-autumn