Bringing ‘We Fish as One’ to Bristol

Bringing ‘We Fish as One’ to Bristol
By Dean Asplin, Regional Angling Development Manager, South of England

As home to over 400,000 people with roots in nearly 200 different countries and who speak 91 different languages and practice 45 religions, the City of Bristol was a natural starting point to host one of my ‘We Fish as One’ pilot projects. If you haven’t heard about We Fish as One, be sure to check out the campaign’s homepage at www.anglingtrust.net/wefishasone to read how it helps people from all backgrounds to experience the life-changing benefits of angling.

Get Fishing in Bristol

After promoting the We Fish as One campaign locally, I was approached by Shahnaz Chowdhury, from Health Links -a service for city residents who because of language and cultural barriers, have difficulty accessing health services.

Shahnaz explains: “I saw people fishing in Eastville Park lake during lockdown and the idea that fishing could be an opportunity to bring people from the Bangladeshi community together, make social connections and perhaps start conversations about physical and mental health, wellbeing and isolation, well it all kind of sparked from there. Our team got in touch with the Angling Trust and it was Dean who told us more about We Fish as One, and how Get Fishing events for beginners would be the ideal platform to bring all this together.”

Get Fishing events can help social connections and start conversations about physical and mental health, wellbeing and isolation

Pretty soon me and Shahnaz had extended the plan to include port, the Active Partnership for the West of England, and were setting up a female only, male only and family only event. Although Shahnaz explained that the majority of Bangladeshis are familiar with fishing, this is really only because for some families the staple diet often includes rice and fish of some sort, and fishing in that country is mostly to provide food. So I was unsure how well received these catch-and-release sessions in Bristol Docks would be! However, as it turned out, all three sessions were fully booked, enthusiasm and enjoyment ran high, and at the end everyone wanted to know when the next events would be happening.

Angling Trust, Health Links and Wesport decided that by investing in training for some of these keen new anglers to become qualified and licenced angling coaches, we could help them support more regular sessions for newcomer anglers both from within their communities and wider audiences.

Our goal is to see large scale Get Fishing events happening within the City of Bristol in 2023

In May of this year, fully funded in equal parts by the generous support of the Environment Agency and Wesport, we successfully ran a Level 1 coaching course for 10 people in Bristol. I am pleased to say we had representation from the local Bangladeshi, Chinese and Pakistani communities and the course included nearly as many females as males. These new Level 1 coaches then completed two more Get Fishing angling experience upskilling days and before the end of the year will be building their coaching confidence by taking friends and family fishing.

A Level 1 coaching course for 10 people in Bristol with representatives from local communities

In August 2022, I have just heard the great news that the project has been further backed by Sport England with £3,000 of investment from its Together Fund towards the cost of more coach training, fishing kit and travel expenses for attendees from disadvantaged families.

Get Fishing in Bristol is supported by Sport England, Environment Agency, Shakespeare Fishing Tackle and Angling Direct

Our goal is to see large scale Get Fishing events happening within the City of Bristol in 2023 which are almost entirely facilitated as a result of the forward-thinking and investment of Shahnaz and his Health Links Team, Wesport, the Environment Agency and Angling Trust Coaching Centre, and support from Get Fishing’s Exclusive Partners at Angling Direct and Shakespeare. These events will have a strong We Fish as One component to their promotion, thus ensuring that the invite goes out to diverse audiences from the City of Bristol, a great outcome for Sport England’s ‘Uniting the Movement’ directive. If you or your company would like to get involved, please drop me a line – [email protected]

Our goal is to see large scale Get Fishing events happening within the City of Bristol in 2023

Look out for more updates in 2023!

Dean
[email protected]

The Angling Trust’s We Fish as One campaign – #WeFishAsOne
Capitalising on the recent interest in angling during and since Covid lockdowns, the campaign promotes the sport’s community building opportunities, mental health benefits and consistently strong safeguarding record. Angling has a unique and timely offering to address key insights that speak of ongoing barriers to inclusivity. Currently just 7% of people who fish identify as ethnically diverse and a recent OnePoll survey for the Angling Trust revealed that 1 in 20 (6%) respondents said they didn’t feel represented in angling based on their gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnic diversity or culture. Seven We Fish as One pilot sites across England have been identified as places to generate community partnerships, with particular focus given to: Women, parents and carers, ethnically diverse groups, young people, disabled people, LGBT+ communities and those with long-term health conditions. The Angling Trust’s We Fish as One campaign is duel funded by Sport England through it’s Uniting the Movement vision and the Environment Agency through rod fishing licence income.
For more information on the We Fish as One campaign please visit www/anglingtrust.net/getfishing/we-fish-as-one

The Get Fishing campaign to get more people fishing more often is funded by the Environment Agency from fishing licence income as part of the National Angling Strategic Services contract with the Angling Trust, and Sport England. Children under 13 do not need a licence, and licences for children aged between 13 and 16 are free but you still need to register and receive a licence in order to go fishing. You can get a licence for the full year, for 8 days (ideal for holidays!) or just a day’s fishing.

NOTE: Although young children who are under 13 year old do not need a licence to fish, the person supervising them needs the proper fishing licence to take hold of the rod or to help the child fish with it.

The Angling Trust’s ‘Get Fishing’ campaign is proudly supported by
Shakespeare, Exclusive Tackle Partner and Angling Direct, Exclusive Retail Partner
as we all work towards getting more people fishing, more often.