London Sports Awards
05 June 2014
Thursday 5 June
Last night (Wednesday 4 June), London Youth’s sports programme Getting Ready was awarded the Community Sport Project of the Year at the London Sports Awards.
The London Sports Awards recognised the contributions and successes of clubs, volunteers and other organisations within community sport throughout London and were held at the Lee Valley VeloPark where Great Britain dominated on the track at the London 2012 Olympics.
This is great recognition for the programme which was first launched in 2009 and since then has worked with over 7,000 young people across London with over 40% of those participants having previously been inactive.
Within the last year Getting Ready has worked with over 1,200 young people and supported training for 130 sports coaches and receives funding from Sport England through their Community Activation Fund and the Greater London Authority's Mayor's Legacy Participation Fund
The award was sponsored by Skills Active and their CEO Ian Taylor had this to say about Getting Ready:
"On behalf of everyone at SkillsActive, I would like to congratulate everyone associated with Getting Ready. Having engaged over 1,200 people in sport is a fantastic achievement; inspiring young people to participate in physical activity makes not only an impact on the individual, but also on their surrounding community."
"At SkillsActive, we are committed to ensuring sport and physical activity is delivered to the highest possible standard, and this is done through relevant qualifications and continuing professional development. Getting Ready has trained 130 coaches across some of London’s more deprived areas, a number that everybody can be proud of. Through having more qualified coaches, we can continue to get more people playing sport, and ultimately committing to an active, healthy lifestyle."
Zoe Mellis, Head of Sports Development at London Youth, said:
“We’re absolutely delighted to have been awarded the Community Sport Project of the Year. It is really great that youth clubs are being recognised as a place where high quality structured sport can take place; and where young people who wouldn’t normally be active can have fun playing sport. Huge thanks have to go to Sport England and the GLA for their support and ensuring that we can continue to challenge and support young people to become more active.”
London Youth sports development officers Jas Hothi, Kieran Connolly and John Jones with Francis Felix and Naz Deen of Coram's Fields
It was also a great night for Francis Felix of member club Coram’s Fields who won the Young Volunteer of the Year award adding to his Greater London Sportivate Participant of the Year award in 2013.
In the last four years Francis has taken on a leadership role at Coram’s Field including being one of 14 young leaders who delivered the Camden Unity Cup to 500+ young people in August 2013 and leading seven of his peers on a surfing reward weekend to North Devon with London Youth's partners, Community Action Through Sport. He also plays a massive part in shaping the sport provision at Coram’s Fields ensuring it is inclusive and open to everyone.
Member organisation Harrow Club were also nominated for Club of the Year and while they missed out on the night it was further recognition for the superb work going on at community youth organisations across London and in our membership.
