Hello to all my dear readers! I am introducing myself once more, my name is Lucas and I am a translation intern at PlayMoovin’. As I explained in my first article, this text will be a bit different from what you are used to see on this website. Here, I will talk about my personal experience and my impressions of an event I was fortunate enough to take part in. Indeed, the 27th edition of the ANDES congress started on the 15th of May in Limoges and I went there along PlayMoovin’ CEO Sébastien Passemard to represent the company.
I am taking you with me in the backstage of French sport but before that, I deemed necessary to introduce the ANDES.
ANDES, a conveyor of sports within local communities
ANDES (Elected sport representatives national association) is a national association whose objective is to support local communities and towns by guiding them in the creation of sport development projects. This association encourages discussions and good practices and relays the questions and needs of the local representatives to local and national bodies. Their network is composed of 8000 groups of and single municipalities in mainland France and in Overseas Territories as well as of different experts who do the connexion with the field. If you want to know more about them, I included links to their website in this article’s bibliography.
On the 15th and the 16th of May, the annual edition of their congress took place with the presence of about 200 elected sport representatives as well as around 30 companies working in the sport industry who had booths to talk with representatives and other people participating to the event. Some companies are specialised in the creation of synthetic grass for pitches, others build inclusive playground structures, or set up lighting for stadiums and gymnasiums, security equipment or score boards.
Beginning of the day and setup
After we arrived at around 8AM, we installed our booth and we listened to the congress opening speech. Then, the participants were coming and going between the booths and some people stopped by PlayMoovin’s.
Despite the limited interest some had, two representatives from a southern France town wee particularly interested in what we offer because they were already developing sport initiatives for people suffering from a disability. It was a very interesting discussion from a sport and collaborative point of view.
It was also the occasion for me to try explaining and promoting the PlayMoovin’ wheelchairs to interested parties. I found this exercise to be stimulating and full of encounters even if it is not a field I know very well and even if it is not something I want to do as my occupation. It is all about presenting the product in a simple and understandable way all while adapting the presentation to the needs and questions the person on the other side might have. At 11AM, I went to one of the two activities that were planned for day, this one was about the Local Sport Project which I wanted to talk about.
The ANDES’ Local Sport Project and its applications
This activity was composed of three in contributions on the same topic but at different scales: what are the local projects put in place by municipalities to encourage sport practice within them?
Three elected sport representatives from three different towns introduced their projects according to their locality. The representative from Arbois was the first to present her project, followed by the representative from Roanne and then by the representative from Reims. It was interesting to note the differences between the mentioned bullet points depending on the size of the town regarding the encountered problems, the allocation of the budget and the number of clubs involved. For instance, while Arbois’ project was about the structural state of the installations (renovation of the swimming pool following a flood) and promotion of sport practice within the town, Roanne’s project on the other hand was more about coordinating the town’s different clubs’ actions and collecting information among the people through surveys.
I was delighted to notice the general enthusiasm around the topic among the people from the different towns who were intervening. I felt that they had their heart set on developing sport practice within their territory and on offering the best possible conditions to practice.
Afternoon and end of the event
After a collective friendly meal, the congress started again at 2PM. At 2:45 PM, the second activity of the day started, “Terrains de Grands Jeux” (Pitches for big games) but I did not participate to it. I preferred to stay at the booth to welcome potential interested people who would want to get information on PlayMoovin’. At 5 PM, there was an interesting round-table discussion about sport financing in 2026. Thanks to the conversations I had with representatives and even though I have not heard the entirety of the discussions at the round table, I took notice of the main problem regarding the creation of sport projects: the budget dedicated to sports.
This seems to be the greatest obstacle to the development of new projects and to the equipment supply as well as to the construction of new infrastructures and the upkeep of existing ones. This problem is all the more unsettling that the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic games took place in France in 2024. This event which was as an amazing showcase of French sport came with the promise of an immense boost for sport in France. If in fact, numerous infrastructures were built thanks to the games and if many clubs saw their number of members rise, the budget is still insufficient to see many local projects through according to ANDES. The association’s objective is to make so that the available budget for sports reaches 1% of the State’s total budget by 2030, a sum of money which ANDES esteems reasonable and sufficient to make their projects a reality.
Personally, I was blown away to see that this problem and what comes with it (lack of qualified personnel for example) was one of the only obstacles to the development of sport on a local scale. It is even more so important in the field of parasport where qualified personnel is rarer and where mentalities are not completely adapted yet. I would really like to see the budget rise, especially if it is used to support local projects like those I heard about.
Final impressions and conclusion
I am really happy to have participated to that event and would like to wholeheartedly thank Sébastien Passemard to have taken me with him to represent the company. I learned a lot of very interesting things on a topic I was not at all familiar with and this allowed me to become aware of the difficulties that come with the creation of sport projects. I am now even more convinced that PlayMoovin’ can bring a lot of things to the table in a environment like this one when I see people’s will to promote sport practice on their local scale, which is one of PlayMoovin’s missions.
Dear readers, I bid you farewell for now and I will maybe see you next time if I have an occasion to write a new article. If you are also part of a sport structure, of an association or of a school and that you want to contribute to change how people view disabilities, we would be delighted to help you, so contact us through our website and come discover our selection of multisport wheelchairs!
Bilbiography :
ANDES’ website:
https://andes.fr/actualites/27eme-edition-du-congres-andes/
ANDES’ article regarding the heritage left behind by the Paralympic and the Olympic Games:
https://andes.fr/actualites/communique-de-presse-heritage/
