Everyone at Scottish Disability Sport would like to take this opportunity to wish all athletes, coaches, volunteers, partners and key stakeholders a very merry Christmas and a healthy and prosperous New Year. We thank you all most sincerely for your hard work, commitment, achievements and support during the last 12 months. We all look forward to working with you further during 2025.
Scottish Disability Sport (SDS) is the recognised governing body for the sport of Boccia in Scotland and is tasked with developing players capable of domestic and international success. We are also responsible for progressing the best Scottish talent to a UK Boccia World Class Programme where players represent Great Britain at European, World and Paralympic level. In order to achieve this, a competitive national squad is a vital element.
10 players have been selected for the Scottish Boccia Squad for 2025. 9 players have been reselected with Perth and Kinross player Alex Medley joining the squad for the first time. We are delighted to retain coaches Claire Morrison, Jenny Nethery and 3 Coaching Futures coaches Peter McGuire, Scott McGuire and Jamie McGuire. Coaching Futures is a programme supported by sportscotland to help transition athletes into coaching.
Please see the squad selection below:
| Players | ||
| Name | Classification | Local Authority |
| Kayleigh Brown | BC2 | South Ayrshire |
| Alex Medley | BC2 | Perth and Kinross |
| Lewis McConnell | BC2 | City of Glasgow |
| Ross MacNeil | BC3 | North Lanarkshire |
| Patrick Wilson | BC3 | City of Edinburgh |
| Stephen McGuire | BC4 | South Lanarkshire |
| Paul McIntyre | BC4 | Forth Valley |
| Scott McIntyre | BC4 | Forth Valley |
| Tyler McLelland | BC4 | Fife |
| Fiona Muirhead | BC4 | South Lanarkshire |
| Stewart MacNeil | Ramp Assistant | North Lanarkshire |
| Meredith Greenwood | Ramp Assistant | City of London |
|
Coaches |
||
| Name | Local Authority | |
| Claire Morrison | Fife | |
| Jenny Nethery | Renfrewshire | |
| Jamie McCowan | South Ayrshire | |
| Scott McCowan | South Ayrshire | |
| Peter McGuire | South Lanarkshire | |
11.11.24 – GOGA-Tayside-Programme-Administrator-2024-Updated
Are you a dynamic and enthusiastic team player who has a passion for inclusion?
Scottish Disability Sport (SDS), in partnership with NHS Tayside and the Tayside Charitable Foundation is seeking to appoint a Get Out Get Active (GOGA) Tayside Programme Administrator to support disabled and non-disabled people to take part in fun and inclusive physical activity across Tayside.
The post holder will work in partnership with local partners to develop and deliver physical activity opportunities.
Click on the link above to apply and submit your application.
GOGA Tayside on active representation throughout the Tayside region and the importance of physical activity for everyone.
“If you are going to attract a more diverse group of people, then you’ve got to be representative of a diverse group yourself.”
This year’s Scottish Women and Girls In Sport Week will run from Monday 30th of September to Sunday 6th of October. The theme this year is leadership; This is something that the Get Out Get Active Tayside programme (GOGA) is aware of, with it being a female-led organisation “Everyone should feel represented, women make up 50% of the population” said Iona McKay, the Programme Manager for GOGA Tayside. Iona went on to say, “It is a shame that there are a lot of things that actually have to target more women and girls, because they are so under-represented in many aspects of society.” “If you are going to attract a more diverse group of people, then you’ve got to be representative of a diverse group yourself.”
One method that GOGA are currently using to try and target more women and girls into their classes is providing a selection of services “we have got mixed classes and we have got women-only classes, The feedback has been that some women often find those classes to be more comfortable, in a female-only environment.” Iona said before continuing “Anything that we can do like that, like a female-only swimming class to reduce any of the barriers has got to be a good thing.”
Iona and the rest of the GOGA team are aware of the importance of finding out what barriers to participating in activities there are, and then mitigating them accordingly “We know that there is a huge drop off in participation in teenage girls, even before they get to that leaving school sort of age, we know that is even more heightened if people have disabilities.” “It’s about trying to target people at that younger age to keep them going, just moving in any way that works for them.” Iona said before adding “as I mentioned before the female-only yoga class is really good, because it is led by a female instructor in a safe space. If you have somewhere where you know, you can close the blinds and close the doors and they feel like they are safe when they come into the class, so that they can exercise freely and just be themselves.”
Along with being a partner with Scottish Disability Sport, GOGA Tayside is also a partner with NHS Tayside. This partnership has led to GOGA being in a position to implement classes and opportunities for the region to be more physically active, with an aim that an increase in physical activity throughout the Tayside area will reduce some of the strain and pressure on the NHS “We know that the burden of physical inactivity is huge not only in costs to the economy alone, but obviously the impact of the burden of diseases and health conditions. It is evidenced that physical inactivity is just as harmful as smoking.” Said Iona. This impact of physical inactivity is something that GOGA is directly combating through providing new opportunities to become more physically active for all under-represented groups, including women and girls. This can be evidenced by seeing that GOGA have achieved a total of 28, 394 participants attending their classes.
Through being a female led organisation GOGA view their role as being a lot more than just providing opportunities to be physically active “I think it is not just about delivering or providing opportunities for a whole range of people, including women and girls or any inactive groups, but it is really about doing the education and awareness of the damage you can do by just not moving.” Iona explained. “it’s about saying that just doing something each day is better than nothing, it’s about reinforcing that it is so important for people to feel better within themselves and get more confident overall.” Iona concluded.
If you are currently within the Tayside region and want to find out more about GOGA Tayside and their classes, you can do so by visiting their website. Link to website – https://gogatayside.co.uk/
The PKDS champs were competed over two weekends in August due to the venue needing to be changed. The event was held at the UHI Perth at the Academy of Sport and Wellbeing on the Saturday 10th and Sunday the 18th of August. Due to the new venues numbers had to be capped to ensure the competition ran smoothly for all the competitors. In the end 74 players competed in three categories. Across both weekends there were close matches from the beginning to the very end.
Graeme Doig the PKDS branch co-ordinator had this to say “It was great to see so many people from across the country come together to play competitive against each other. I am delighted to see the numbers grow locally across all categories which shows the work we are putting in to develop boccia in Perth & Kinross is starting to generate more confident, skilful players. It’s also brilliant to welcome such high calibre officials to support our event, again with a large cohort from our local sessions”
Boccia was also a featured in the Muscular Dystrophy UK event in Grangemouth on the 24th of August. Where participants got to engage in boccia and get coached and a Q&A with Scott McGowan who is one of the Scotland boccia coaches.
Day Two: was another fun day! We started it off playing boccia, goalball and football, the latter which was definitely a group favourite! After lunch, we trekked around 5km to do a circular route to/from the Green Loch. It was quite tough in places – we had to climb a few hills but we rose to the challenge and had a great time!
We were set some team tasks to complete on the expedition, one being to come up with a team song or chant. Ours was: “Red team is on fire!” Alicia Keys eat your heart out!
Day Three: That’s a wrap on camp! And what a way to bring it to a close with a BBQ in the sun with our families and carers! Just after the BBQ we got a group photo and then it was the prize giving ceremony – to find out which team won the John De Courcy Trophy. With 8601 points we sealed second place, not far behind the blue team who won the trophy with 8937 points. We’re very proud of ourselves and can leave camp with our heads held high.
On our final day, before lunch, we enjoyed adaptive cycling and taking part in the summer camp assault course. The cycling was fun, as you could go very fast on the bikes! We kept up the same momentum in the assault course – trying to complete it faster than both the green and blue teams.
It’s been a whirlwind three days and we’re leaving camp with new friendships and lasting memories. We’re already buzzing for Summer Camp 2025!
Day Two: we loved day two! It was great fun playing different sports in the morning, especially boccia where we got to practice are target skills. In the afternoon we travelled to Glenmore Lodge where we started and ended our expedition to the Green Loch. We had to push ourselves as some of the terrain was quite challenging but we found that singing helped! We even created a cool chant for our team:
“Captain Moss went up the hill to find the lost Green Team,
They went to the Green Loch and found the flock,
And the rest of the summer camp teams!”
Day Three: We’re so sad that camp is over! But we’re leaving with an abundance of great memories and friendships!
On the final day, after packing and breakfast, we headed to the sports hall where we got to take part in a summer camp assault course and adaptive cycling. Both were lots of fun but the cycling especially! It was super cool to try adaptive bikes that could go really fast. A few of us will definitely want to try it again!
After the morning’s sport activities, our families and carers started to arrive – just in time for the BBQ. It was a great opportunity to show them our new friends and share some stories from the past three days.
After we got a big group photo, Josh from SDS, announced the winners of the John De Courcy Trophy. It was a very close competition but the blue team took the title, with us proudly finishing in third place.
Summer Camp was amazing and we already can’t wait for next year!
Day Two: was ace! One of our favourite parts was hiking to the Green Loch. We were the last team to set off but we soon caught up with the green and red team, to arrive at the loch pretty much all at the same time.
We were really proud of our team chant, which Harris led on and we repeated back. It went like this:
“We’re the Blue Team (we’re the Blue Team),
We’re the best team (we’re the best team),
And we’re going to win! (And we’re going to win).”
Day Three:
We can’t believe that camp is finished! Where did the time go?
We had an absolute blast over the past three days and finished with a high – we won the John De Courcy Trophy! During the camp we earned 8937 points, just enough to pip the red team to claim the title. What made it extra special was that our families, parents and carers were all there to see us awarded the trophy, as they joined us for a lunchtime BBQ!
Before they arrived, we had a busy morning. After breakfast we had to be packed and out of the lodges before 9:30am, to make sure we were ready for the morning activities. Cycle Ability brought a great range of adaptive bikes to try out – we really enjoyed cycling them!
There was also a great summer camp assault course to take part in. It involved us army crawling under nets and boccia target games. The sun even popped out a few times!
It really was a great three days – filled with adventures, new friendships and lasting memories.
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