Sport Unlimited Prizes Awarded
Two young sport participants from Northumberland recently won a prize draw for taking part in Northumberland Sport's 'Sport Unlimited' programme, a national Sport England programme aimed at boosting participation among those aged between 10 and 19. Sporting Champion and former Olympic Gymnast and twice Commonwealth Gold medallist, Craig Heap, was on hand to present a Nintendo Wii console package to Tom Wade from Rothbury and an iPod Nano to Chris Walker from Hexham, for attending a given amount of organised sessions.
Tom and Chris's chosen sports for the Spring term were Football and Squash where they were provided with the opportunity to participate in a 10 week organised programme at Dr Thomlinson Middle School in Rothbury and Hexham Squash Club.
Tom said: "The Sport Unlimited football sessions at my school were really good and I really enjoyed myself."
Chris added "with the sessions being held on a Sunday it meant I could attend all the sessions and I have really enjoyed the programme and will definitely continue to play squash at the club."
The Sport Unlimited programme, which is managed by Northumberland Sport, has been able to identify a local need to provide a wide range of 10-week, high-quality organised taster sessions across the county, which have been designed to inspire youngsters to sign up for longer-term participation in local clubs in the community. The programme has been an outstanding success in Northumberland with Hexham Squash club seeing many of the young people that attended the sessions going on to become members, with its junior membership increasing by 40 as a result. Since the roll out of Sport Unlimited in 2008, Sport Unlimited, the programme has enabled 7000 young people to participate in over 2,000 sporting sessions across the county.
Hexham Squash Coach Jimmy Chambers said: "The programme has been a great success for the club and we have been overwhemled by the number of young people wanting to take part and continue once the sessions have finished"
Craig Heap said: "My role as a Sporting Champion is to raise the aspirations of all young people involved in the Sport Unlimited programme and encourage continued participation at local community clubs after the Sport Unlimited tater sessions have finished. It's therefore great to see that Tom and Chris have been able to really enjoy the football and squash sessions and been able to use them as a platform to continue playing both games, which I hope they'll continue to do for many years to come."
Jim Ellison, Partnership Development Manager from the Morpeth/Ponteland School Sport Partnership said: "I'm really pleased for Tom to have received this prize. Sport Unlimited has proved a very popular addition to our sporting programme for young people, which has seen a variety of sports delivered from your traditional sports such as football and tennis to other sports including golf, dance, street cheer and rowing to name a few. We will now continue to work with Northumberland Sport and local schools to provide more opportunities for young people for the coming year."
Sport Unlimited continues to grow during 2010/11 with 11 new National Governing Bodes of Sport now helping to provide more opportunities to young people across the county. Over 150 different programmes will be provided during this period with over 6000 young people targeted from the borders in the north, urban areas in the south east and the cumbrian border in the west.
To find out more about the Sport Unlimited programme and how to win an iPod Touch and other prizes worth £100, please visit the Sport Unlimited pages.
