Saturday 24th August was a multi-sport event that marked the start of the Festival of Sport this year. The event took place outside, on the field at Meadowbank Sports Centre. It was a chance to see the Edinburgh’s start athletes join with local clubs to showcase their sport in this huge multi-sport extravaganza.
With only one year until the start of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth games, the purpose of the event was to raise the profile of sport in Edinburgh and to inspire local people. Although volleyball will not be part of the 2014 Commonwealth games, we were given the chance to showcase volleyball.
It didn’t take long to set the court up and once it was up it wasn’t long before volunteers were wanting to have a go. As soon as they saw the net and court up, people wanted to come along and take part. The event was open to the public where children and parents were free to try out different sports as they wished. Volleyball was popular from the start and I don’t think there was a moment that the court was empty. We spent time going through the skills and briefing them on how to play volleyball. But most of the children just wanted to play and work it out for themselves. My assistant coaches were great, showed great patience with the children and took part in playing themselves. Volunteers from other sports would walk by and have a go as well as parents.
The event was supported by forth one and the presenter Mark Martin was there to host the event. Mark took part in a sports ‘challenge’ in varies sports and volleyball was one of them. He successfully completed his challenge and then continued to play in a match which I think he enjoyed!
It was a great opportunity for me to meet parents and children from different areas of Edinburgh and it was really pleasing for me to see how much enthusiasm children who had never played before had for volleyball. There were some who kept on coming back during the day, wanting to play more and asking how they can get involved. Huge thank you to my star helpers Naomi Symonds and Laura Sproule would did an awesome job in delivering and promoting the sport. As Development Officer for the East, this has given me plenty to think about and I am looking forward to getting involved in the development in local areas.
Jennifer Thom
East Regional Development Officer
