Category: A News
Fife Junior Para Swimmer Rising through the Ranks
- November 2013 First SDS Junior Swimming Championships Grangemouth
- November 2014 Second SDS Junior Champs November Grangemouth
- Cameron’s first classification in June 2016 = S10 SB9 SM10
- Following classification Cameron is invited to join Scottish Squad
- National Para-swimming Championships 2016 in Manchester
- Move to InCAS to train under Garrie Roberts, and an increase in training intensity
- Awarded most improved swimmer trophy at the 2017 Disability Sport Fife Annual Awards
- Cameron with Garrie at the Scottish Open Swimming Championships in 2018 at Tollcross – Glasgow
- Cameron competing at his first British Para Swimming International Meet 2019 at Tollcross.
Young Fife all rounder is one to watch
Scottish Disability Sport Young Persons Quiz Night
On Thursday 2 April, SDS held its very first general knowledge virtual quiz with members of the Young Persons Sport Panel, Young Start Programme and Scottish Boccia Squad. There were 22 teams in total playing to win the title of quiz champion. The winner of the quiz was Scottish Boccia player, Ross Munro, closely followed by Young Start programme member Abby Cook in second position and Colette Martin from the Young persons Sport Panel in third place. It was great to see so many smiley faces during this strange time and fantastic that lots of other family members got involved too.
During these unprecedented times SDS is exploring various ways online to ensure our programmes can continue in some shape or form and make sure the wellbeing of our participants is at the centre of this. Watch out in the coming weeks for more ways in which you can get involved. Roll on the next quiz!
Lothian Disability Sport AGM & Awards
Due to the ongoing situation with Coronavirus, Lothian Disability Sport have decided to postpone our AGM for the time being. However we would still like to invite nominations for our Annual Awards which we will present at a later date.
The aim of the Annual Awards is to recognise individuals and teams who have achieved particular success or achievement in their sport over the previous 12 months. Nominations are welcome in the following categories –
- Young Sports Person Award
- Senior Sports Person Award
- Team / Club Award
- Volunteer / Coach Award
- Endeavour Award
Please find the award nomination form below. Deadline for entries is Friday 29th May 2020. Nominations can be emailed to admin@lothiandisabilitysport.co.uk.
Annual Award Nomination Form 2020
If you have any questions surrounding this information, please contact Jack Brodie on 0788 554 9173 or admin@lothiandisabilitysport.co.uk.
Tayside Regional Round-Up
The Tayside Regional Round-Up is now available with news about recent events including:
- The hugely successful 6th Tayside Parasport Festival
- Dundee United Community Trust goalball session
- Regional competitions in badminton, boccia, swimming, powerchair football, sportshall athletics and many more
- Regional Sports Awards
- Disability Inclusion Training workshops
- Link-up with Scottish Student Sport
You can download the Round-Up here.
If you or anyone you know has a disability and would like to get involved in sport in the Tayside Region, please contact Graeme Doig – graeme.doig@scottishdisabilitysport.com.
Tokyo Paralympic Games: New Dates Confirmed
The Tokyo Olympic Games will start on 23 July, 2021 and run to 8 August after being postponed for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) executive board met on Monday to make the decision.
Full article on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/52091224
SDS Bids farewell to Norma Buchanan
Tuesday 31st March is the final working day for Norma Buchanan as part time administrator with Scottish Disability Sport. Since 2000 Norma has worked part time for SDS and part time for Disability Sport Fife. From 1st April 2020 Norma will retain her part time post with DSF but retire totally from SDS.
Norma has always worked in the Fife office of Scottish Disability Sport where her responsibilities lay largely in the areas of events and finance. Initially Norma worked closely with the late David Thomson from Glenrothes, who was treasurer of SDS for many years.
More recently Norma’s responsibilities centred wholly on the events side of SDS business and she became the named person for all issues relating to the comprehensive SDS events programme. All SDS branch representatives dealt directly with Norma and she became a highly respected and hard working SDS officer. Norma was the name on the events entry form and there was very little about the programme that she did not shape and develop. She is a consummate professional in every sense and highly respected by those she worked with. Mark Gaffney is well and truly the man in the driving seat in events these days and Norma has enjoyed immensely her time working with him.
Although no longer working directly with Scottish Disability Sport, we are delighted that Norma will remain within the wider Scottish Disability Sport family. Norma‘s work will continue to contribute to everything we all do – as it has done over the many years.
Live on Curious Coaches Website
Curious Coaches’ Club
What are the things that separate good coaches from great coaches? Well, we know that one of those elements is curiosity; it is the urge you feel to know more about something. Alongside this is the knowledge that the more we learn and find out, the more we realise we don’t actually know as much as we thought! This is where the ‘Curious Coaches Club’ comes in!
Each week we will be holding a conversation about a particular coaching topic that we know is important to coaches and one that many would like to learn more about. You see, we are all coaches as well and are fascinated by the process and art of coaching, helping people to learn and grow whilst using sport and activity as the vehicle to achieve this. Sometimes this might be helping another person get better at a specific technical or tactical outcome or it could be to support someone else to increase their confidence or communication skills.
The ‘Curious Coaches Club’ will have three parts to it:
- Watch ‘A Conversation About…’ between expert coaches live on a Monday or on-demand via UKCoaching.org or our You Tube channel.
- Engage and take part in a more in-depth conversation about the topic on Wednesday or Thursday via smaller informal gatherings of coaches hosted by one of our team.
- Continue the conversation via the community aspect of ‘Connected Coaches’ hosted on our website.
Over the coming weeks we will be following this process to talk about all sorts of different topics and feel free to share with us if there are any specific topics, discussions or coaches you would like to hear from and we will see what we can do!
Our First Theme is Coaching from your Home to their Garden where we will be discussing remote coaching all week
Curious Coaches’ Club – Open Webinar
- Monday 30 March, 14:00 – 15:00
Join Mark Bateman and Andy Bradshaw for a conversation about remote coaching. They’ll share practice, explore some of the essentials and discuss how you’ll be able to support the people you coach during this challenging time. They’ll also look to draw on some positive consequences from having to work in a different way and how these may also become staple parts of our coaching craft.
Curious Coaches’ Club – Community of Practices
- Wednesday 1 April, 11:00 – 12:00
- Thursday 2 April, 18:00 – 19:00
Join some of the UK Coaching Team to engage and take part in a smaller more in-depth community of practice style conversation around Monday’s ‘Coaching From your Home to their Garden’ webinar. To attend this session you must have attended the live session on Monday or watched it on demand via UKCoaching.org. Places are limited so get in quick to secure your place.
Click below to book your place
Young Fife Para Swimmer Inspiring Others
Disability Sport Fife is immensely proud of Glenrothes High school former pupil Craig Smith. In his day he was a talented Para swimmer with a very promising career ahead. Excellent school exam results and university beckoned. Circumstances changed but work and further study then followed. One day Craig appeared back in the DSF office and volunteered to sign up for a succession of Scottish Swimming teaching and coaching awards.
Mentored on the pool deck by Lara Ferguson, Craig joined Glenrothes Amateur Swimming Club and became a very popular and successful teacher. Never one to sit around Craig was then off to Glasgow to pursue the next chapter of his young exciting life.
Craig has recently committed his time and expertise to the Scottish Disability Sport Young Start Futures team. One of Craig’s roles was to work as a member of the team and help members with the application for future programme funding. Craig’s role was to create a member’s survey that would determine how team members envisaged the programme developing if a funding application was successful.
On the back of the survey responses Craig reached out and attended meetings with SAMH and Scottish Sport Futures to determine what they could offer to the programme and also of course to seek advice. Craig collaborated with other members of the Young Start Futures team plus the programme mentors. A summary of the plans for the programme was prepared and Craig was proud to be part of the team that presented the details to members of the Big Lottery at their office in Glasgow.
Craig was also thrilled to be part of the small team from Scotland that travelled to London for the UK Coaching Awards. Craig’s role was to represent the Scottish programme as finalists in the transforming coaching award section.
At the recent Young Start Futures residential at Inverclyde, Craig was part of the Young Start Futures team that presented the ideas for the future of the programme to the rest of the Young Start group. Scott Tait from Wee Flee productions provided an excellent session on creating videos with phones. Leading on from this session, Craig met up with Scott to assist with the edit of the footage from the weekend and ensure the young person’s message comes across as intended. Robert Nesbitt of SAMH was also in attendance at the residential.
Over the years I can think of several Disability Sport Fife members who have enthusiastically offered their time and expertise for the benefit of others. Craig Smith is the most recent and we wish him continued success in his quest to support, encourage and inspire other young people with disabilities into sports coaching. Craig’s teaching/coaching journey has been impressive so far and I am sure he has much more to offer. Well done Craig, we are all so proud of you back here in Fife.
Richard Brickley OBE MBE Chairman DSF (SCIO) Board of Charity Trustees
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