Everyone a winner at the Hampshire OnBoard Festival
Hampshire OnBoard Festival a great success
A combination of fun games and informal relay racing in dinghies on the lake at Spinnaker Club, Ringwood gave 42 youngsters an opportunity to pitch their skills and enthusiasm against each other while learning about sailing and kayaking at the same time.
The event was the Hampshire OnBoard Festival 2010, in which all the kids taking part were part of the OnBoard Scheme which encourages children to get involved in boating.
The kids had all started to sail just this season, through their school and club links. The kids, whose ages ranged from 7 to 16 years old came from a number of different clubs around Hampshire including Hill Head, Hamble River, Portchester and Spinnaker.
On a perfect day of brilliant sunshine and a gentle breeze, the youngsters divided into teams, rotating around four separate activity games including a Topper Egg and Spoon, Bug Pass the Parcel, Feva V Q'Ba Football and a Go Paddling experience. They had 25 minutes on each activity before rotating onto the next. The Q'Bas seemed to be the winning favourite on the football and there were a few logistical problems with sinking hard boiled eggs in the Topper Egg and Spoon!!
The day ended with a mass relay race. Although everyone was a winner for taking part, the Gold team scored best and took home winners’ medals. The day concluded with a barbecue in the sunshine and each participant collected their Harken bag and their OnBoard certificates.
Event organiser Sam Jones commented “I am overjoyed at the success of the day. Everything went absolutely according to plan – even the weather! All the kids had a fabulous time on the water as did all the volunteers. We had all the OnBoard clubs in Hampshire together and it was great to see the kids making new friends and working as a team, especially in the egg and spoon race and the Bug pass the Parcel - just what I wanted to see.”
One of the youngest participants, Molly from Hill Head, aged 7 said “My older brother and sister sail with OnBoard but sailing is so much fun I begged to be part of it the Festival with them.”
Thanks go to OnBoard suppliers LaserPerformance who provided 10 Bugs for the festival and Harken who gave goody bag prizes for everyone.
Run by the RYA, OnBoard is a grass roots programme which introduces sailing and windsurfing to young people aged 8 to 18, through schools, youth groups and training centres. Over a ten year period OnBoard aims to introduce a minimum of 500,000 children to sailing and windsurfing in the UK, converting over 10% of them into regular participants. So far it’s nicely on track.
For more information about how to get involved in sailing visit the RYA’s website www.rya.org.uk or the OnBoard website www.ruob.co.uk.