Young Ambassadors

Termly update of the Young Ambassadors initiative ISSUE 01 SPRING TERM 2013

What is the Young Ambassador Initiative all about?!

The London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics has been used by the Young Ambassadors Initiative in order to inspire others to get involved in Sport A Young Ambassador is someone who is willing to assist and deliver activities within their school and community clubs! You have to be enthusiastic, committed and willing to give up your time to the Sports Development Team. Through being a YA you will gain many skills such as commitment, leadership, confidence, work experience and communicational skills. It will also give you the opportunity to meet other Young Ambassadors as well as meet new people, take on a variety of roles and inspire others to participate in a variety of activities and sports. There are three different types of Young Ambassadors starting with the bronze, then progressing to the silver and then to Gold. Each stage is slightly different to the previous and as a person goes through these stages they will gain many qualifications and of course a lot of experience. After progressing through the Gold stage a person may wish to progress onto the final stage of the Young Ambassadors initiative and that is the Platinum stage.

P.1 Introduction to What a Young Ambassador is P.2 The Young Ambassadors Launch P.3 Bronze Training day and Twyn Schools Observation P.4 YA Images

What is the Sports Development Team

Merthyr Sports Development is a team that is solely dedicated to increasing participation in physical activity amongst all ages in the Merthyr Borough. We are based within the schools running programs such as Dragon Sports and 5x60. We also help within the community to set up and support clubs.

The Young Ambassadors Launch!!!!!

With the Young Ambassadors initiative being as influential and as exciting as it is, We here at Sports Development felt it would only be right to get our YAs off and running with a hugely successful Young Ambassadors Launch. So that is exactly what we did! On the 16th of January, in the main hall of the Merthyr Leisure center, we launched the Young Ambassador initiative. All of the 27 schools within the local authority were invited to attend the launch and 14 of those schools actually managed to attend. Out of those 14 schools we had 9 primary schools, all of the 4 secondary schools and Greenfields school. All of this added up to 56 eager Young Ambassadors. The Day had taken months of planning for our Community Sport Development Officer Darren Jones who put the whole day together and is the person responsible for it being such a huge success. Along side him we had the rest of the sports development team that included our other Community Sport Development Officer Gareth Hughes, our three Community Sport Assistants and our Young Ambassador Coordinator. The day itself was opened in style by Her Worship the Mayor Lisa Mytton who addressed the Young Ambassadors who then went on to take part in the first workshop. That workshop was delivered by our Young Ambassadors co-coordinator Elliott Evans. Elliott is a former pupil of Bishop Hedley School and he took up the role in November of last year and quickly came to terms with what the initiative was all about, he had put together a workshop to help the Young Ambassadors understand what their roles and responsibilities are. He delivered it superbly and was given great feedback by the teachers, pupils and colleagues. Also, we were very happy to welcome a true inspiration to us all in the form of Paralympian Rhys Jones. Rhys is 18 years of age and from Tonypandy and despite being branded a hopeless case by doctors when he was younger, he went on to run for Team GB in London 2012!! Rhys was also a Young Ambassador and spoke about his experiences while addressing the YAs and taking part in a Question & Answer session. The rest of the morning consisted of another workshop, the first was about Community Sport and delivered by our Community Sport Development Officer Gareth Hughes who then went on to conduct a School Sports Survey. After Lunch, our Bronze and Silver YAs went on to take part in a practical dragon sports session lead by our Community Sports Assistants Luke Tandy, Vikki Jones and Emma Christopher while the Gold YAs and the teachers took part in a final workshop lead by our Disability Sport Officer Dan Bufton, the workshop was all about discussing how we could implement the initiative into the schools. All the YAs then came back together for Action Planning and the day was finished off with a Olympic and Paralympic quiz and the YAs were awarded with certificates for attending. Before the day kicked off the YAs were also given t-shirts specific to the level they were at.

In order to support Merthyrs Bronze YAs as best as possible, our Community Sport Development Officer Darren Jones decided to hold a Young Leaders Training day to help the YAs feel more comfortable with delivering and assisting sessions in their schools. The training day took place on the 27th February down at Merthyr Tydfil Leisure Centre. 7 Primary schools attended bringing 24 Bronze YAs to the afternoon. The Afternoon was lead by our YA Coordinator and Community Sport Assistant Emma Christopher. The training itself consisted of guiding the YAs through a session. They looked at things such as how to structure a session, how to deliver warm ups and why we should warm up. They also looked at how to deliver activities and what sort of qualities a person requires to be good leader.

School: Twynyrodyn Young Ambassadors: Abbie Thomas + Joseph Gittoes

On Friday 22nd March, Merthyrs Young Ambassador Coordinator went to visit Twyn Primary School and their Young Ambassadors to see how they are getting on!!

The Young Ambassadors put together their very own session and lead that session along with the help of some other pupils. Abbie and Joseph delivered a session that was based around Football, Rugby + Gymnastics. Abbie got things going with a warm up and then went straight into her Gymnastics Session! She split the pupils up into four separate groups and she had four separate stations. The stations were based on Floor, Beam, Vault and Conditioning. Abbie overseen the whole delivery of the session while other pupils who are also gymnasts helped with each station as the groups alternated through them so that everyone tried each station. Following Abbie session, Joseph took over and split the pupils up into two groups. One group focused on Rugby while the other looked at Football and again, the groups alternated so that everyone tried each sport. They then finished off with a game of Temple Run where the Pupils had to get from one side of the hall, to the other without being hit by the ball! Just as Abbie had done previously, Joseph also overseen the delivery of the session while other pupils helped out. Twyn are the first school to have been observed by our Young Ambassador Coordinator. Both the Young Ambassadors had a glittering reviews and really impressed our coordinator!

All the YAs enjoyed themselves having fun while learning some new stuff!

Well done Twyn and keep up the good work!!!!!!!

Pen-Y-Dre Young Ambassadors Primary Schools Festival

On Wednesday the 13th March, Pen Y Dre High School opened its doors to Four Primary schools within the borough. Gellifaelog, Dowlais, Pant and Goetre all attended the football festival which was led by Pen Y Dres very own Young Ambassadors. Each school that attended brought a minimum of seven players each and the games were six a-side, Six minutes long and everybody played each other at least once. There were 4 Young Ambassadors that led the festival and at a previous meeting they had assigned each other roles. Cameron was in charge of officiating the games; Kate was responsible for keeping scores while Jess and Jamie took the two teams that werent playing next door into the gym to deliver a 10 minutes skills session. The day was a huge success for everyone involved and the YAs can be very proud of how well their first ever festival had run. The YAs are keen to sit down and organise another festival as soon as possible and are looking to continue the good work!