CENTENARY CAMPAIGN

ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

What do you
care about

Alumni and friends kick off the Festival of School Sport

29 February 2012

Children running
As the UK counts down to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London, here at the University of Bristol we’re preparing by counting down to the 2012 Bristol Festival of School Sport in March. Reaching out to over one thousand secondary school pupils each year, the Bristol Festival of School Sport is the flagship event within our community sport programme.

Like all our community sport activities, the Festival is heavily dependent on charitable donations and the support of student volunteers. In particular, the University is grateful to John Rutley, Sir James Tidmarsh KCVO MBE JP (Hon LLD 2002) and Steven Everett (BSc 1993) for their generous gifts, without which the Festival would not be possible.

Their donations, along with those of other alumni and friends, have not only part-funded the Festival itself, but have also enabled dozens of volunteers to benefit from subsidised courses in coaching, officiating and sports leadership. These courses prepare students for volunteering in schools, in local sports clubs or at community events like the Festival of School Sport.  Thanks to philanthropic support, our volunteer ‘workforce’ has swelled from just 15-20 students three years ago, to well over 100. Our community sport programme now reaches out to up to 3,000 Bristol youngsters each year.

This year, the Festival will be held on 26-28 March 2012. This annual three-day event aims to give positive experiences of sport to pupils who are not engaged by traditional school sports activities and who usually don’t get picked for their school teams. The Festival gives these children a chance to try new and unusual activities and to compete in a less pressurised environment – and above all, it aims to demonstrate that sport can be fun.

The Festival of School Sport is supported by RELAYS (Regional Educational Legacy for Arts & Youth Sport), the Olympic legacy programme for the South West of England. In 2011, pupils from 18 secondary schools across Bristol participated in the Festival, with each school contingent representing a different Olympic country. Throughout the event, pupils had the chance to compete for their own gold, silver and bronze medals. This year, as excitement builds ahead of the Olympic Games, the Festival will be bigger and better than ever.

If you’d like to find out more about our community sports programme, or make a donation, please email us at alumni@bristol.ac.uk (please write ‘Community Sport’ in the subject field) or telephone +44 (0)117 928 7938.