Lee Cockwell, Chairman of Swanage and Wareham RFU Mini's and Youth (Swans M&Y), has successfully achieved a Lottery Awards for All grant. The Swans M&Y project has been granted to help with the development of its community youth and to give them the best possible activities by means of maintaining enjoyment through its medium of edutainment.
Lee explained that the Awards for All grant will help Swans M&Y to promote a healthy socially motivational, safe, and equal opportunity environment to the local youth in the community.
The grant is to fund greater learning, equipment and resources as follows;
• Lap tops, printer, camera & video cam
• Website development for learning pages & Youth / Coach's uploads
• Nutrition & Cookery Workshops
• Recreational Toddler & siblings play facilities
• Baby play pens, Breast feeding dividers & Sofa
• Girls safeguarding kit
• Equipment (Girls & Boys)
• Specialist books
• School Network Liaison Person / Coach
Marcus Monier-Williams, Vice Chairman, noted that t he grant will aid Swans' M&Y differing age groups to access, and have the ability to physically use the equipment at source. "This will enable tacit learning by means of such accessibility, and the youths themselves developing learning evidence and resources for themselves and their peers. Giving the youth this ability to develop and communicate their learning experiences themselves via Swans' web site with uploads (and downloads) from the youths' developmental sessions will have fantastic learning repercussions.
Such communicational, developmental and exploratory exchanging of ideas and skills with their peers is fantastic."
Access to these resources will also give added substantiality to the volunteers (and the youth respectively) in that a standardised pool of learning resource will be available and ready identifiable levels of what learning has been achieved. With lessons learned, future lesson planning and a pool of content which will be ever increasing and continue to enhance knowledge and standards for all.
Funding specialist, James Gregory, identified that the Awards for All grant will additionally help Swans M&Y establish an innovative learning approach to other community issues such as nutrition and obesity such as identified by the NHS' HWSfD themes:
Theme 1: Change the obesogenic environment of Dorset
Theme 2: Make individual healthier lifestyle choices easier
Theme 3: Support those who are already overweight or obese to achieve a healthy weight and lifestyle
The grant will promote such HWSfD schemes through six nutritious cookery workshop sessions for the youth that will cross pollinate and build on the schools food trust initiative. Therefore our youth will identify with and understand the need for healthy eating and exercise in their lifestyles.
James has designed the first workshop that will be held at Swans M&Y club on the 23 rd May and will include:
• Aims and Objectives of the Lottery bid
• Bread Making with nutritious produce
• Nutritional discussion and Colour Spell learning technique
• Shell Seekers demo of dressed crab and bacon scallops
• Mis en Place for the days cookery
• Salt and Pig sustainability discussion and Veggie demo
• Pampered Pigs Farm tour and nutritional sausage making exercise
• Filleting Fish M&J Seafood
• Return back to club for 7s or Tag rugby held by School Liaison Coach/s
• Cook off of nutritious goodies that the youth have made
• Throughout the day there will be a edutainment discussions about nutrition and we will use an NLP Colour Spell learning technique process that the youngsters will use within the following 5 workshops.
Lee really understands the Swans' M&Y community are the future - even its contingent of baby and toddler siblings associated with the youth. The grant has enabled toy and play facilities for these toddlers and mummy (daddy and grandparent) groups who also need edutaining through play learning. These community groups now have a safe, designated family learning play area with facilities whilst the youth health activities and proposed activities take place.
Marcus added that the whole project will engage in a stronger healthier community removing barriers and engaging in a more active environment with other age groups from varying social economic back grounds. The project will benefit our community youth by developing healthy, up to date activities within our rural environment with an increased access of sustainable produce, IT equipment and facilities.
The Award has also helped fund a School Network Liaison Person (SNLP) who will actively promote and publicise our community youths existence and the pleasures and benefits for all the age groups and both genders within our community schools.
James has developed this project strategy further within other community groups who are involved in football, cricket, fishing, also schools and charity groups within Dorset to share his funding knowledge and experiences so that they too can benefit their youth and community. James can be contacted at jag@gdfconsultancy.com .
as identified in the NHS' HEALTHY WEIGHT STRATEGY FOR DORSET 2009 - 2012 (HWSfD)
