Getting the best
 
Last week I received the papers for the upcoming Lib Dem conference in September.  But they had missed out sending me some of the relevant documents.  Pleased to see the errant few arrived yesterday.  I imagine the lack of staff in Cowley Street probably had something to do with it.
 
One of the documents is the sport working group's paper , Personal Best, which will be voted on.  I was on the group for its first six months until an I took a breather from the hectic and existing world of Parliament last October.  While there are sections I recognise from my time on it, including the decision to regionalise governance, I'm a little disappointed by the apparent lack of vision.
 
Although it has the basics right, by trying to encourage more people to take up sport (with the idea that more people should mean more getting through the ranks to the top), it would have been nice to see more attention given over to achieving sporting excellence at the top.  Instead of adopting the approach which the Australians took 15-20 years ago, by deciding to invest to achieve success (and thereby making sport one of the country's key export commodities), the paper is a lot less daring.
 
By all means focus on getting more people in sport.  But let's not forget that top sportsmen are great role models for getting kids interested.