YOUR SUCCESS STORIES
team BEDS&LUTON are keen to hear from clubs across the county who have a success story to share so that we can celebrate all your great work but also encourage the sharing of good practise.
We are keen to hear about all sports clubs successes but we are currently particularly interested in the following areas;
• Clubs with successful links to schools
• Clubs that have achieved successful funding applications
• Clubs that have run a successful initiative to increase membership
SUCCESS STORIES
We hope to develop this section of the website to show a wealth of club achievements but we need you – our clubs – to share your success stories with us. To do this, please complete the online feedback form on the previous page.
• SCHOOL - CLUB LINK STORIES
Luton Lions Cheerleading Club - Sandy Upper School
As an introduction to Cheerleading for yrs 9-11 girls at the school, an after school club was created coached by Fresh Fit UK coaches and assisted by Sandy Upper School PE department. The pupils were provided with the goal of entering the National Schools UK Cheerleading Association Competition.
The after school club now has regular participation from over 20 pupils and has developed into a school team the 'Sandy Sharks'. They reached their goal and entered the National Schools competition and came 9th in their category!... and won the much coverted 'Spirit Award' out of 111 teams that entered!!
Luton Lions Cheerleading Club - Robert Bloomfield Middle School
Luton Lions Cheerleading club run a weekly after school cheerleading club for pupils at Robert Bloomfield Middle School. The club has also attended most of the feeder schools to deliver free taster sessions for boys and girls at the schools. All the pupils were given leaflets with information about the classes at Luton Lions Cheerleading Club.
The club has started 4 new classes a week for yrs 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10+ and in doing so the clubs membership has increased by 40 members. The club is looking to double this increase in the long term.
• FUNDING STORIES
‘Get Back Into’ delivered by
The club has just finished their 3rd Get Back Into programme and is going to be a big player in January’s proceedings. In terms of what has been achieved they have gained several new, and perhaps more importantly, active new members, some people have enrolled for the programme more than once (one has been on all three!) and they have more than doubled the number of coaching hours the club delivers.
All non squash players must appreciate that squash is amongst the toughest sports to play in terms of physical requirements and that doesn’t suit everyone. As a result, the first course ran with 15 participants initially which dropped off to 8 by the final week. The 2nd grew further and the 3rd had 23 registered (albeit only 12 actually turned up on the first night, but that time there was only one drop out).
The course is designed to introduce the basic strokes of the game and to encourage basic tactics. At the end of a session they always finished off with a handicapped tournament between participants to give them a taste of the whole sport.
Congratulations to the
‘Get Back Into’ delivered by Hightown Community Badminton Club courtesy of Sandra Connolly
Sandra Connolly reports on her achievement of setting up a community club. The club was set up following a successful ‘Get Back Into’ badminton course at Hightown Recreation Centre.
After several years when I had not been playing badminton, due to the pressures of work, I participated in a Get Back Into course at Hightown Recreation Centre during the autumn term of 2008. John Harris, the coach, was very encouraging and positive and as the course progressed a number of us were having conversations along the line of ’…It would be good to carry on with this…’ John picked up on these conversations and invited Joby from team BEDS&
People were invited to express an interest and as a result 14 people on the course said they would like to get involved with it. We applied for the funding and fortunately we were successful. With our funding secured, it helped us to secure a block booking and to access some additional coaching. On average 18 participants meet on a weekly basis on a Wednesday evening from 6.30pm – 8.00pm and we have access to 3 courts. The format of play encourages people to ‘mingle’ with everyone to ensure the club keeps that ‘community’ feel to it, participation is key to our success!
To ensure the running of the club maintained its fluidity we formed a committee to work out our charging policy which ultimately determined the result of the next block booking. Once we had confirmed this, the club had a vast uptake in new members which had been signposted from the Vauxhall club, the Hightown Recreation Centre itself and some family members. Our membership capacity has now reached 22 and as a result of our success we are now registered as a Badminton England accredited club.
• MEMBERSHIP STORIES
