Spotlight: Girvan Community Sports Hub
17 March 2020
COMMUNITY BENEFIT FUNDING: Advancing people's physical and mental health, wellbeing and safety and creating opportunities for young people to access sport and leisure facilities and boost their skills and employability.
Girvan Community Sports Hub (GCSH) is a multi-agency partnership made up of representatives from around 30 local sporting organisations. GCSH aims to increase the number of opportunities for people of all ages to take part in sport and physical activity. Their weekly sessions in Girvan engage 124 young people in multi-sports events in the gym at Girvan Academy with more than 30 young people attending each week.
Girvan and district community groups can access community benefit funds from the Falck Assel Valley Girvan Community Fund. The Fund, provided by Falck Renewables, is linked to its nearby Assel Valley wind farm in South Ayrshire. An advisory panel of community councillors makes decisions on awards, supported by grant-making charity Foundation Scotland.
That Friday Thing (TFT) is a free to attend, multi-sport youth group run weekly during term time in Girvan Academy. Through TFT sessions, GCSH provide a wide variety of sporting activities, in part delivered by local young people who are often working towards Sport Academy qualifications. The lack of local youth facilities in Girvan has been a long-standing community concern. Young people residing in Girvan seldom have the logistical or financial means to access facilities and opportunities.
Based on feedback from the community and TFT members, GCSH decided to broaden the sessions from two age-groups to three and further develop their offering to young people, with the following priorities:
• To engage with more young people to decrease youth disorder on Friday evenings
• To provide further volunteer opportunities for those undertaking volunteering or with an interest in sport.
• To build positive relationships with new attendees and to develop existing relationships between young people, staff and volunteers
• To work together to develop a volunteer ‘contract’ for those participants interested in volunteering.
The total project cost was £6,649 and an award of £4,862 from the Falck Assel Valley Girvan Community Fund was made to match the contribution from GCSH’s own fundraising efforts.
The funding enabled GCSH to operate That Friday Thing for a year and to expand the number of sessions from one to three per week – covering a wider age range and offering a number of different activities.
Since the funding was granted, more than 100 young people have taken part in TFT and the group has engaged 20 young volunteers. The sessions provide an alternative to anti-social behaviours on Friday evenings and have become a staple in many young people’s lives with the coaches reporting that a lot of young people use TFT as an escape from personal situations and struggles.
Over the last 6 months of the grant period, GCSH recruited two volunteers, moving them to paid coaches within the TFT programme, using sport as the tool to develop their skills.
TFT has enabled GCSH to form a positive relationship with young people, encouraging them to access other sport and well-being opportunities, improving their physical health and promoting mental well-being by providing a safe place to be more open in discussing issues in their life.
For more information about the Falck Assel Valley Girvan Community Fund go here: /programmes/assel-valley-girvan/
For more information about Girvan Community Sports Hub contact Connor Watt: connor@girvancsh.org