We want to make Glasgow Roller Derby as diverse, accessible and inclusive as possible. We recently expanded our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Officer role into a full committee, because we realised we had a lot of work to do in these areas, and it’s too much for one person to do on their own.
Our new Head of the EDI Committee, Cara Viola, reviewed the results of our last membership survey to understand the makeup of our team. Based on the results, she identified the following EDI priorities for the next year:
Supporting skaters’ mental health
Supporting skaters on low incomes
Increasing ethnic diversity in the league
Cara said, “Tackling inequalities within sport can be daunting, but by focusing on three areas we have a clear purpose to work towards. Small actions can have a big impact and we hope that through continuous action we can make GRD a more inclusive space for everyone to participate.”
The EDI Committee recently met to discuss how we can improve in these three areas. Here’s what we’re planning to do:
Mental health
We’re going to sign up for the SAMH Mental Health Charter for Physical Activity and Sport. The charter aims to improve equality and reduce discrimination for anyone with a mental health problem.
We also plan to support league wellbeing by:
Collating a list of mental health resources that we can signpost skaters to
Organising Mental Health First Aid training for coaches and other relevant team members
Promoting key mental health awareness days and resources on our social media channels
Buying a ‘worry whale’ that skaters can use to share their worries on game day in a safe, confidential way
Low incomes
We want to ensure that the league is financially viable for current and new league members by doing fundraising for uniforms and kit. We know that roller derby is an expensive sport, and we don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t join or participate because they’re struggling to afford the equipment they need.
Our Sponsorship & Fundraising Committee recently put together donation packages that will allow people to donate money that we can use to buy equipment for skaters that need it.
We also want to make sure that people on low incomes are able to attend our games. We already offer a range of price bands for our tickets, and we’ll review whether there is more we can do to make our games more affordable.
Since restarting roller derby after the pandemic, we trialled a Pay What You Can model for our membership fees to help ease the financial burden of taking part in roller derby. The trial was successful, and we have never looked back
Increasing ethnic diversity
In order to make our league more ethnically diverse, we plan to:
Review our recruitment processes and improve them using insights from research into barriers into sport for the global majority
Partner with a local charity that supports refugees
EDI awareness within the league
Even though we now have an EDI Committee, we want everyone in the league to be aware of EDI issues. Some of the steps that we’re taking to raise awareness are:
Discussing the importance of EDI in our other committees
Running a EDI book group, starting with Being an Ally
Creating an EDI GoodReads page as a space to share resources
Drafting an EDI statement and strategy for the league
Using pronoun stickers on our helmets to normalise sharing pronouns and make our league more welcoming for transgender skaters
We know that some of the things we want to do will take time, and we’re not always going to get it right. And that’s where you come in, Did you try an EDI initiative in your roller derby league that worked well? Have you spotted a gap that we’ve missed? We’re always open to feedback that can help make us a more inclusive league.
