encourage continuous participation in sport; and (4) to create a local sports community. Subsequently, a planning committee was founded and the committee and its sub-committees held meetings more than 40 times over two years, finally leading to setting up the Yatsuo Sports Club in April 2004.

▲Yatsuo Sports Club

At the time it was proposed, however, the new concepts proposed by the comprehensive community sports club (“independent management by local people,” “public interest,” and the “benefit principle”) were not easily accepted by the local community and the club faced difficulties. To resolve this situation, the management explained the concepts at meetings held with various organizations, solicited citizens to participate in individual sports circles managed by the club, and planned events to be hosted by the preparatory committee.

As a result of these steady PR activities and efforts, the club has more than 820 members as of August 2004, six months after it was established. It has thus already achieved the numerical target of "700 members in the initial year." In response to requests from its members, the club is improving its sports programs for infants and elementary school pupils and is providing new training classes. These approaches to meet members' requirements have led to a gradual increase in the number of members. The club, however, has yet to carry out effective cooperation with various sports organizations, secure and train instructors, and secure enough financial resources.

As its goal, Yatsuo Sports Club aims to help inhabitants of the town maintain and promote their health through exercise and sport, contribute to enlivening the local community, and to be recognized by the town's inhabitants as their very own club.

## (3) Wide-area sports centers in Fukuoka Prefecture

MEXT commissioned Fukuoka Prefecture to implement a model project for developing sports centers covering a wide area, and to organize these sports centers to support the development of comprehensive community sports clubs.

As features of this project, the prefectural government established sports club liaison councils, one each in the five areas in the prefecture and assigned the role of secretariat to each of the boards of education in those areas. The liaison councils were deemed necessary in view of regional disparities in terms of population, local people's ideas about sports and sports facilities, and to establish wide-area sports centers that could respond flexibly to these disparities. Led by these councils, wide-area sports centers were then established based on the local characteristics, and a network of these sports centers was also built, centering round the Fukuoka Prefectural Sports Science Information Center. These efforts resulted in a unique model project.

At present, through this established network, municipalities covered by the wide-area sports centers are exchanging information and 28 club managers are conducting activities to give support to local communities in response to their actual needs. As a result, the number of sports clubs established and the number of municipalities planning to establish such clubs are increasing.

Since FY2002, utilizing this functional network, the wide-area sports centers have been holding seminars and exchange meetings to support the establishment of sports clubs that meet actual local needs, and they have been dispatching advisors to develop these clubs.

Furthermore in FY2004, the Fukuoka Prefectural Amateur Sports Association, which was implementing Comprehensive Community Sports Clubs Development Promotion Program joined the network of wide-area sports centers and founded a committee to promote the development of comprehensive community sports clubs, involving the Prefecture's schools board as well. These measures have deepened the links between the related organizations, which are now implementing projects more effectively and efficiently, sharing roles in supporting the development of comprehensive community sports clubs.