CSSC Sports & Leisure

CSSC is a member-owned, membership organisation which provides leisure, health and wellbeing benefits, offers, savings and opportunities to all working and retired UK civil servants and public sector employees.

Services

Established in 1921, CSSC helps public sector workers, and their families maximise their work-life balance and make more of their leisure time with free and discounted days out to heritage and cultural sites, like English Heritage, Cadw, National Trust Scotland, Historic Scotland, and Kew Gardens. Plus, helping members to save money when visiting corporate partners such as local and national zoos, wetland centres, theme parks, cinemas, theatres, restaurants and many others. They also provide retail discounts and cashback to thousands of online and high street stores and retailers.

Products and services

CSSC provides health and wellbeing opportunities for the civil service and public sector through sports and recreational ventures.

Sporting opportunities

CSSC provides its members and their families opportunities to participate in over 30 discounted and subsidised sports and activities, including football, rugby, swimming, hockey, golf, running, netball, rounders, sailing, pool, hiking, volleyball, tennis and more.

CSSC hosts large-scale events throughout the year, across the UK, such as park runs, football, rugby, running and tennis championships, and invites members and non-members to take part.

Members benefit from discounted entry as well as savings on sports equipment, clothing, technology, nutrition, and gym memberships.

CSSC offers financial support packages to its members, which can fund race day entry fees and workplace activities. CSSC funding can help cover the costs of training for official coaching qualifications and contribute to the expense of competing internationally or taking on unusual challenges like rowing the Atlantic.

Corporate partnerships

CSSC partners with external organisations to offer its members free and discounted entry.

English Heritage – CSSC members get free unlimited entry to English Heritage sites for their families.

Cadw – CSSC members get free unlimited family entry to all Cadw sites.

Historic Scotland – CSSC offers its members discounted tickets to Historic Scotland properties.

Kew Gardens – CSSC offers members free unlimited entry to Kew Gardens and Wakehurst.

Cinemas and theatres – Members get discounts on cinema and theatre tickets to local and national screenings, outdoor cinemas and all UK multiplexes.

Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust – Members can access all WWT sites at reduced rates.

Theme parks – Through CSSC, the civil service and public sector can purchase reduced-price tickets to major UK theme parks.

Zoos and wildlife parks CSSC has partnered with many local and national wildlife and conservation parks for discounted family entry.

Retail savings – CSSC’s retail arm ‘CSSC savings’ offers its members discounts, savings and cashback at thousands of online and local & national high street stores and retailers.

Personify Health^TH – CSSC members enjoy free access to the customisable, online health and wellbeing platform, Personify Health.

Volunteering

CSSC is ably supported by volunteers from across its membership who host taster days and local events and trips to its 100,000+ members. Days are usually discounted, organised, group bookings at popular resorts, days out, coach trips, tasters and experiences. Members typically volunteer from between 1 and 30 years and can receive awards for their endeavours at an annual ceremony.

Health and wellbeing partnerships

CSSC partners with civil service teams such as the Charity for Civil Servants to deliver Active Wellbeing events throughout the year, which helps the civil service and public sector improve their work-life balance with exciting opportunities to increase their activity levels to stay fit, active and healthy.

Structure

The CSSC Board is responsible for forming policy and overseeing the business conduct. The CSSC Board consists of the following roles:

-         Independent Chairperson -         Vice-Chair -         Up to eight Directors -         Honorary Treasurer -         Boardroom Apprentice

The full Board meets four times a year, and in between, specific responsibilities are carried out by the Audit & Risk, Nomination & Renumeration and Sport & Volunteer committees.

Regional councils – Responsible for organising a regional activities programme, covering leisure trips and sporting activities.

Area associations – Responsible for local activities. Areas vary greatly in size and offer a range of sporting and leisure activities which are either organised by area committee or purchased and offered at subsidised rates. A few area associations also run their own club, which vary in size and offer a range of different sporting facilities.

Departmental associations – Are formed and controlled by each department and vary in terms of size and the range of activities they offer. These departments are supported with funding and resources.

Sport and recreational bodies – Help promote sport to members and organise a range of different events, national championships, interdepartmental events, representative matches and training. Some bodies run facilities such as sailing boats or have fishing waters.

Health & fitness centres and Alpha fitness – CSSC manages health and fitness centres (HFCs) in partnership with departments within Civil Service buildings. These national HFCs are typically run by a locally elected committee. In addition, Alpha Fitness Management Solutions runs four gyms, which are managed by staff.

Location

CSSC head office is located in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, on the edge of the Chiltern Hills, one hour outside of central London, UK.

Approximately 60 staff are responsible for customer support, event management, estate management, finance, marketing, recruitment, sports development and volunteer support.

History

Making athletes of us all – A brief history of the Civil Service Sports Council

The story of the Civil Service Sports Council begins in 1921 with four individuals – George Barson, Richard Cox, Noel Curtis Bennett and Charles Howard – who had a vision and the courage of their convictions to pursue a notion whose time had come. Even so, those convictions might have come to nothing were it not for the timely indulgence of two kindred spirits in high places: Warren Fisher, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, and the first Head of the Civil Service, and HRH the Duke of York.

In an organisation hidebound by grades and hierarchy, the concept of an ‘All Service’ sports association open to all was little short of revolutionary. Richard Cox, editor of *The Civilian*, a weekly departmental publication, lit the blue touch paper with an open letter to all civil servants in June 1921, mooting the idea of a Central Sports Body which would allow civil servants to compete on equal terms with business houses, the Armed Forces and industry. The response was overwhelming, and ‘an idea was born’, to coin the phrase first articulated by Charles Howard as editor of the *Civil Service Sports Journal*, which made its debut in September 1923.

Some seventy clubs and sports associations turned up to an inaugural meeting at Central Hall, Westminster, on 4th November 1921, to endorse a resolution to launch the CSSC. Popular acclamation coupled with warm messages of support from the Palace and the Treasury carried the day. In next to no time, individual sports were forming themselves into associations preparatory to affiliating to the CSSC. Within a year, athletics, swimming, chess, cricket, football, rowing, cycling, lawn tennis, golf, hockey and shooting were all on board, ready to compete under the CSSC banner.

The Civil Service Sports Council. As self-styled protagonist in chief, Curtis-Bennett wasted no time in setting the tone, spelling out a mission statement that would reverberate down the ages, extolling the virtues of health and wellbeing in the workplace. A man of boundless energy, NCB, as he was affectionately known, devoted all of his leisure time (and much of his private fortune) to travelling the country canvassing support for the CSSC, along with his friend and colleague George Barson.

The first formal sporting fixture occurred in August 1922 when a CSSC cricket eleven took to the field at Leyton against the RAF, confounding the sceptics and beating their opponents by six wickets. Within five years, the CSSC had moved into the real estate business, acquiring ten sports grounds throughout the country with the famous Chiswick ground in west London at its heart, inspiring *The Civilian* to comment ‘Chiswick’s fillip to Service sport had made athletes of us all’.

The officially opened by King George V on 26 February 1926, the sporting expanse at Chiswick represented a crowning achievement for an organisation that still had less than 10,000 members and an annual income of barely £2,500 (£154,000 in today’s money). The icing on the cake came later the same year when the CSSC hosted a landmark cricket fixture against Australia, who were on tour in the UK. Over 3,000 spectators turned out for the first day. Similar fixtures would follow against New Zealand in 1927 and the West Indies in 1928.

The 1930s were lean times for many, but civil servants’ appetite for organised sport was insatiable: football, rugby and cricket often stole the limelight, but lawn tennis, bowls, hockey, shooting, golf, rowing, netball, fencing, squash, table tennis and chess all jostled for attention. Niche activities like ice skating also found a ready clientele, as did motoring, flying and horse riding. Nor were they a male preserve; female participation in all sports save football and rugby increased dramatically throughout the decade.

Despite support from people in high places, not least a penchant for donating some quite spectacular trophies for a variety of sports, the CSSC was created on ‘a wing and a prayer’. Annual subscriptions were no match for the founding fathers’ aspirations, consequently the CSSC often found itself short of funds. Fortunately, on those occasions when money got really tight, Warren Fisher could always be relied upon to save the day, and in 1936 he delivered the coup de grace, negotiating an annual government grant-in-aid of £20,000. Sadly, it would be short lived.

The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 could so easily have spelt the end of the CSSC – organised sport ceased, funding was severely affected, and many sports grounds were requisitioned by the military. However, it soon became clear that the CSSC was uniquely placed to meet the sport and recreational needs of civil servants evacuated from London to the provinces. And who better to mastermind this makeover than NCB, a task he performed with aplomb, prior to stepping up to chairman of the CSSC in 1942–44.

In 1931, NCB, ever the optimist, had opined ‘we have faith in the future and are confident that in time our twelve thousand supporters will grow to two hundred thousand or more’. By the time chairman Sir Richard Hayward stood up to address the Golden Jubilee Dinner in 1971, membership had surpassed 220,000, annual income was over £400,000 and the CSSC estate embraced 70 sites on land and water, reputedly making it the largest voluntary sporting organisation in the world.

Fast forward another half century, and NCB and his cohorts would find the CSSC changed out of all recognition, a product of a wholesale shift in attitudes to sport and recreation and social mores. Yet the original raison d’etre for the CSSC as NCB perceived it – ‘The ever-growing stress of work in the Service, the competition and hustle of present-day conditions, will bring with them more and more physical and nervous wreckage unless we develop our bodies and refresh our minds’ remains as relevant as ever, and civil service cricketers still step up to the crease to compete for the Curtis-Bennett Shield.

Paul Rawkins, Author, ‘100 Years of CSSC’

CSSC leadership

CSSC Chairs

1921 – 1928 – Sir Aubrey Symonds KCB 1928 – 1930 – Sir Herbert Creedy GCB KCVO 1930 – 1932 – Sir Oswyn Murray GCB 1932 – 1934 – Sir Russell Scott KCB CSI 1934 – 1936 – Sir Edward Forber KCB CBE 1936 – 1938 – Sir Donald Banks KCB DSO MC 1938 – 1942 – Sir George Chrystal KCB 1942 – 1944 – Sir Noel Curtis Bennett KCVO 1944 – 1948 – Sir Arthur Watson CB CBE 1948 – 1950 – Sir Harold Parker KCB KBE MC 1950 – 1954 – Sir Godfrey Ince GCB KBE 1954 – 1957 – Sir Robert Fraser KCB KBE 1957 – 1959 – Sir Leslie Rowan KCB CVO 1959 – 1962 – Sir James Crombie KCB KBE CMG 1962 – 1965 – Sir Maurice Dean KCB KCMG 1965 – 1968 – Sir Harvey Druitt KCB 1968 – 1973 – Sir Richard Hayward CBE 1973 – 1977 – Sir Louis Petch KCB 1977 – 1982 – Sir Peter Baldwin KCB 1982 – 1985 – Sir George Moseley KCB 1985 – 1989 – Sir Michael Quinlan KCB 1989 – 1993 – Sir Brian Unwin KCB 1993 – 1995 – Sir Michael Partridge KCB 1995 – 1998 – Sir Anthony Battishill GCB 1998 – 2001 – Sir Michael Scholar KCB 2001 – 2005 – Lord Turnbull KCB CVO 2005 – 2008 – Lord O’Donnell GCB 2008 – 2011 – Sir David Bell KCB 2012 – 2016 – Sir Robert Devereaux KCB 2016 – 2018 – Sir Jon Thomson KCB 2018 – 2020 – Philip Rycroft CB 2020 – 2024 – Mark Fisher CBE 2024 – present – Iain Kirkpatrick

CSSC General Secretaries and CEOs

1939 – 1963 – John Middleton MBE 1963 – 1974 – Brian Buckley 1974 – 1981 – Victor Reeves ISO 1981 – 1995 – Frank Krinks OBE 1995 – 2012 – Marian Holmes OBE 2012 – 2022 – Simon Lee MBE 2022 – Present – Matt Bazeley OBE

CSSC Patrons

HM King George V HM King Edward VIII HM King George VI HM Queen Elizabeth II HRH The Duchess of Gloucester GCVO

Current CSSC Vice-Presidents

Sir Brian Unwin KCB Sir Michael Partridge KCB Lord Butler KG GCB CVO PC Sir Anthony Battishill GCB Sir Michael Scholar KCB Lord Turnbull KCB CVO Rt Hon Sir John Major KG CH Rt Hon Tony Blair Rt Hon Gordon Brown Lord O’Donnell GCB Rt Hon David Cameron Rt Hon Lady May MP Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP Rt Hon Liz Truss MP Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP

Current CSSC Life Vice-Chairs

DJ Trevelyan CB Sir John Herbecq KCB FP Krinks OBE Peter Chapman MBE DK Matthews CBE RA Wallace John Strachan Dame Gill Morgan DBE Peter Fischer Marilynne Morgan CB

Honours and awards

CSSC has won several industry awards and is continually shortlisted for industry award shows.

2023 Employee Benefit Award – Nominee for best benefits communications for a small employer. 2023 Employee Benefit Award – Nominee for best healthcare and wellbeing benefits. 2023 Employee Benefit Award – Nominee for best alignment of benefits to business strategy. 2022 UK Active Award – finalist for activation award. 2022 UK Active Award – finalist for marketing campaign award. 2022 Memcom Award – Finalist for the best relaunch of a member magazine. Podium. 2021 Employee Benefits Award – Winner of best alignment of benefits to business strategy. 2021 Employee Benefits Award – Winner of best benefits to support work-life balance.

Trophies

Throughout the year members compete for internationally recognised trophies and awards through a series of sporting, volunteering and social events, competitions, tournaments and activities.

Duke of York Cup

Presented by the late King George VI as the Duke of York for the annual award to the departmental association with the best all-round record in sport and recreation.

Warren Fisher Cup

Sir Warren Fisher presented this cup in 1924 when Permanent Secretary to the Treasury for annual award for the best individual performance in any sport.

Russell Scott Cup

First presented by Sir Russell Scott as Permanent Under-Secretary of State, Home Office to the provincial area with the best record in all spheres.

Hayward Trophy

Donated by former Chair Sir Richard Hayward CBE to the recreational sports body that has achieved the most in any year.

The Turnbull Award

Donated by former Chair Baron Turnbull KCB CVO for the Volunteer who has made the most outstanding contribution in any year.

John Whittaker Fellowship Award

Given for special recognition of outstanding service and commitment.

Sportsperson Award

Presented to a member who has made a significant impact on a CSSC activity or sport in any one year or over a number of years.

Logo

External links

www.cssc.co.uk https://www.instagram.com/cssc_official/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/cssc-official

References

This article "CSSC Sports & Leisure" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:CSSC Sports & Leisure. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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