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28 Mar 2006 09:33:27
As this year’s Commonwealth Games got underway, dozens of young people from more than 20 schools across Herts, Beds, Bucks and North London gathered to participate in a sports leadership day hosted by students from the University of Luton - and they even gained some top tips from British mountain bike champion, Jenny Copnell.
The one-day conference, entitled Young People Leading the Way, was one of 28 events being co-ordinated across England by TOP Link, a government sponsored national programme to encourage young people to get involved in sport through volunteering.
Held at Luton’s Vauxhall Recreation Club, the event involved 19 sports management students teaching 14-16-year-olds the necessary skills to run their own sports festivals for primary school children in their communities. The event also included workshops for their teachers.
Alex Stewart (on far right in photo), lecturer at the University of Luton, worked with sports students to make the day a success. He said: “This was a fantastic opportunity for our students to get hands-on experience of hosting a major sport education day. They were responsible for teaching the teenagers how to organise and run their very own sports festivals and went through rigorous training to facilitate the day.
“The aim of the conference was to get the delegates and their teachers to think about sport as something that is part of every day life and to help them encourage more young people to take part. The Government aims to increase the percentage of children doing four or more hours of sport a week by 2010. Today is all about making this happen.”
The day included workshops which encouraged the soon-to-be sports leaders to share ideas about setting up and managing sports festivals and helped them develop their own leadership skills. Several challenges allowed them to test their planning and time management abilities as well as problem-solving, decision-making and budgeting.
British female cross-country mountain bike champion, Jenny Copnall, took part in the opening ceremony and spent the day working with the groups.
“Jenny was inspirational,” said Alex. “She gave up her time to participate in the event and spent the day chatting and working with the teenagers. They were delighted to talk to a British sporting champion.”
TOP Link’s Trevor Smith said the day was a huge success because of the enthusiasm and dedication of the University students. “This was the University’s first time hosting such an event and it was as good as any that I have attended in the past. It’s a credit to the team involved which was hugely enthusiastic and well-organised.”
TOP Link has been developed by the Youth Sports Trust and is an integral part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Step into Sport programme. Hundreds of sports festivals will be held at primary schools around England over the summer months.
To find out more about sport therapy, sport science and sport management courses available at the University of Luton, call 0800 3896633 or visit www.luton.ac.uk.
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Latest news» 2006» Mar» Luton conference targets sporting leaders of the future
