Community Games Makes a Splash in North Staffordshire

One Saturday in October, Fenton Manor Pool in Stoke on Trent welcomed 50 members of the North Staffordshire Battalion Boys’ Brigade and District Girls’ Brigade to a fun-filled swimming gala with a difference.

Organised to encourage young people to take up swimming and provide plenty of healthy competition, the gala was a great success. It wasn’t just the participants who were excited and enthusiastic, but also the many parents, volunteers and friends who turned up to support the event too!

To give their Community Games an extra special cultural twist, the organisers of the event also arranged for the young people competing in the gala to take part in the Middleport Pottery “Kiln 2000” event. This involved helping the local Middleport Pottery and Teresa Fox-Wells from the Prince’s Trust achieve their target of creating 2,000 mini bottle ovens, and was a very special day out for all involved.

Undoubtedly, one of the best parts about this Community Games was the blend of sport and culture – which enabled the young people to learn a variety of new skills and make lots of new friends, and an added bonus was that Dennis Smith, a former Stoke City FC football player, attended the gala to hand out some very well-deserved awards and congratulate the young people. For many of the participants, it was the first time that they had ever been part of a swimming gala, and the organisers hope that it will have encouraged them to have the confidence to take up swimming on a regular basis.

So much fun was had by all at the gala, that it will now become an annual event – and the organisers have also got some exciting indoor games and summer sports events up their sleeves for the future too.

Here at Community Games, we think that this event is a great example of how to think outside of the box when including a cultural activity into your Community Games – and we hope it will give you some inspiration for your own events!

Community Games Makes a Splash in North Staffordshire