Quicksticks Hockey Festival takes place on the Lancaster campus
Four schools in the Lancaster area were recently invited to take part in a Quicksticks Hockey Festival hosted by the University of Cumbria on its Lancaster campus in association with Morecambe Hockey Club.
Final year BA (Hons) Sports Development and Coaching students from the University of Cumbria volunteered their time in organising the event alongside Morecambe Hockey Club and the School Sport Partnerships competition manager, Steven Jamieson. In order for the event to go ahead, the students worked intensely fundraising and organising the finer details of the day. The schools involved were Dallas Road, Ellel St Johns, Moorside and Dolphinholme, with each school bringing two teams.
Prior to the event, the students went into various schools within the Lancaster area to provide coaching in Quicksticks hockey, as sport which many children had never played before. Quicksticks is a brand new game for 7-11 year-olds which has been specifically designed to introduce the sport to teachers and students who have little or no prior knowledge of hockey.
The event was a great success with Ellel St Johns Primary School winning the festival overall.
The students are now benefiting from the ‘Developing Clubs through Developing People’ project, which enables them to gain funding towards their Level 1 Hockey course in January in return for their volunteering for this event.
Mark Christie, Senior Sports Lecturer at the university said:
“Our students have worked hard to organise this event and I think they’ve done a really great job. I’m really pleased that the University of Cumbria is working with a range of partners within the local community and helping to make sport more accessible to young people.”
Phillip Sumner, sports student and one of the event organisers stated:
“Organising the Quicksticks Festival gave me an insight into the amount of hard work required prior to the event. This experience will benefit me a lot in the future, especially with me looking to do a career in teaching or sport development. The children were given an opportunity to try a new sport in a competitive environment, which they fully enjoyed and many are looking to take up further coaching at Morecambe Hockey Club.”
Nina Swarbrick, Junior Coordinator at Morecambe Hockey Club said:
“Hockey participation in the local area has declined over previous years and we are now hoping that events like this will make kids more aware of the sporting opportunities in the area. The University of Cumbria students have also been volunteering their time at our training sessions, which has allowed us to provide a more structured training session and attract more youngsters.”
The Sport England Lottery funded project, ‘Developing Clubs through Developing People’ is managed by the University of Cumbria in partnership with Cumbria Sport and Lancashire Sport. It aims to financially support full time students at the University of Cumbria with a range of National Governing Body and other Sports’ qualifications, together with essential volunteering experience. For further details, contact nina.swarbrick@cumbria.ac.uk|.
For more information about studying sport at the University of Cumbria, visit the website at www.cumbria.ac.uk/courses| or call 0845 6061144.