Half-term of sport for young Londoners
31 October 2018
During half-term our Sports Development team held a number of events aimed at getting young people active. Over the course of four days, 30 of our members and over 250 young people took part in a variety of sports. It was thanks to funding from Jack Petchey Foundation that we were able to provide these events for the young people to enjoy.
We kicked off the week in East London with our Table Tennis tournament in partnership with Table Tennis England. The tournament was open to all young people, from those who play competitively to those who just wanted to give it a go and have fun. Over 50 young people from 10 member organisations took part.
On Thursday, we held our five-a-side Football Festival, held at Coram’s Fields in Camden. Throughout the day, 166 young people across 24 teams took part. We had three age groups running simultaneously, the U12s, U14s and U16s. Congratulations to Arsenal Kicks who won the U12 competition, XLP who were U14 winners and finally Coram’s who were victorious in the U16 age group.
On Friday, we travelled over to West London for the pilot ‘Switch Fives’ Tournament. This new sport was a great opportunity for young people to try out something completely different and have fun! We had five clubs bring a total of 63 young people playing in nine 5-a-side teams. Because it is such a new sport, it was great for everyone to begin with the same level and experience and watch their development throughout the day. We had two age groups, the U12s and the U14s. Congratulations to Mary’s Youth Club for winning the U12 section, closely followed by Westminster House. It was the two Watford Teams who were victorious in the U14 group, sweeping up both the Silver and the Gold. We encourage you to visit the Switch Sports website here to find out more about the sport, the team behind it, and to find out how you can get involved!
Once again, we would like to say thank you to the Jack Petchey Foundation for funding these three successful events over the course of the week.
On Wednesday, we also supported Chubb Insurance in the running of their “Life Cycle of Events” project, whereby two of our members, Westminster House Youth Club and Southwark Gymnastics, travelled to Chubb’s building in Central London and went head to head in a Rollapaluza Race. This opportunity was the brainchild of Kirat Nandra at Chubb, who wanted to open up opportunities for these young people to think about their professional development whilst also having fun and being active. Congratulations to everyone involved in what turned out to be a well-organised and fun day out! You can read about this day here!
Find out more about our Sports Development programme here.
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