In October County Hall was brought to a standstill as Sportessex, the County Sports Partnership in Essex, launched the nationwide Sport Makers scheme across the county, by ‘flashmobbing’ County Hall. Since the launch, the video has gained over
2,000 views on YouTube and enough interest to begin running the first of its Sport Makers workshops.
Today Essex County Council announces the first workshop, being held at The University of Essex on 2nd February, where over 150 University students and faculty are expected to attend. Sportessex will be hosting a number of these informal and interactive workshops, where attendees will gain the skills to encourage others to get involved in sport. Sport Makers will also be invited to work with organisations that need their help and join forces with other Sport Makers who want to make sport happen locally. There’ll also be opportunities for Sport Makers to meet top athletes and plenty of other incentives to stay involved.
Councillor Stephen Castle, Essex County Council Cabinet Member for Education and the 2012 Games and Sport England’s Regional Sporting Champion for the East of England, commented, ‘The FlashMob was such an inspiring way to launch Sport Makers here in Essex! Sport Makers is a fantastic scheme which will encourage more people across the county to get involved in sport. These workshops will hopefully highlight how anyone can be inspired by the London 2012 Games and that anyone can be a Sport Maker, simply by encouraging others to get involved in sport. I urge the people of Essex to join in and come and attend one of our workshops’.
Sport Makers is part of the Places People Play legacy programme that is bringing the Olympic and Paralympic Games into communities across the country. It aims to inspire 1400 people across the county to get involved in sport, with each of them simply spending 10 hours of their time organising or leading sporting activities in their community or workplace.
Hayley Pegg, from Southend West School Partnership who has recently signed up to Sport Makers commented ‘I have always loved sport and this is a perfect way for me to encourage others to get involved, get active and be inspired to take up a new activity. I can not wait to get started and I really feel these workshops will help me learn the essential skills I need to influence people and make a difference’.
To find out more about becoming a Sport Maker visit
www.sportmakers.co.uk or to see what sport you can get involved in across the county visit
www.sportessex.com