8 players attended from a variety of goalball clubs, including South Wales, New College Worcester, and West Yorkshire, with a number of young people attending for their first Summer Camp. The camp consisted of lots of activities on and off the court designed to support young people to get to make new friends, improve their goalball skills, but most importantly have a fantastic time!
The camp was also an opportunity for members of the Youth Forum to lead activities with the support of Goalball UK staff members Stephen Newey and Kathryn Fielding. For some of the team, it was one of their first experiences within this sort of role, presenting a great opportunity for them to develop their leadership and teamwork skills.
Speaking to Summer Camp Lead and Children and Young People’s Officer Stephen Newey, here are some of the camp’s highlights:
“We led sessions to develop players attacking and defending skills, as well as playing games such as goalball hide and seek, where goalballs were hidden on both sides of the court, and two players on each side had to find the goalballs on their side before the other team did. This led to some players getting a bit lost and doing laps around their team areas trying to find them as quick as they could! Youth Forum members also led nutrition top tip sessions to support players understanding off how they can develop off the court too.
As well as on court sessions during the day, a big part of Summer Camp is the social activities ran in the evening. Arts and crafts was the main focus of Monday evening the group had to complete challenges to earn equipment which will then allow them to create a goalball related creation, where they had to present their creation to the judges for scoring. This resulted in people feeling very strongly about their creations and believe they should receive top marks! Meanwhile on Tuesday it was quiz night which was fun, but as always a bit competitive!”
