Skiing Funding Crisis

Photo by George Althaus www.georgegamedia.com

Two weeks 'til I'm back on snow, training for the Europa Cup Races in December! Can't wait although almost all funding for skiing has been cut and the funding I was hoping for hasn't materialised. I have enough money to last until Christmas but if I'm to continue ski racing I need to raise another £10,000 in the next 2 months.

At the highly informative DKH Negotiating Skills workshop last week, I learned lots of skills which should come in useful for negotiating sponsorship deals but it isn't easy.

At the beginning of the week the team met up at Bath University for our pre-season camp. It was good to catch up with the British Disabled Ski Team and Development Squad. Great training as always with Nick Ward and Team Bath coaches, as well as fitness, strength and body composition testing.

Now I just need to find the money to get out there, put in the training on snow and win more medals! Please let me know if you have any suggestions or can help.

Sporting Champions Training for Sportivate

I had another great training day last week with lots of 'Sporting Champions' for 'Sportivate', a Sport England funded programme designed to fulfil the London 2012 Legacy to inspire and motivate young people (14 to 24 year olds) to enjoy competitive sport. The ultimate goal is to encourage people to join local clubs.

Sportivate provides the opportunity for young people to try new sports and come face to face with Sporting Champions through coaching sessions. I am looking forward to working with Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Sports Partnership on Sportivate.

The training was lively and educational - everytime I go to a Sporting Champions training day I come out with heaps of educational games to store up my sleeve, you never know when you might need them! The trainers are brilliant and apparently we were a great group to train too!

Click on title to see my video clip!

Witney NCS raise £489 for Local Hospital

16 year olds from Witney National Citizens Service near Oxford organised a hugely successful fundraiser for Witney Hospital yesterday.


Everyone wore fancy dress to encourage locals to try their luck in the tombola, enjoy the face painting and crafts table, pin the tail on the donkey and be tempted by tea and cakes made by participants in the local scout hut.


We also enjoyed collecting in the town centre and a whopping £489 was raised, great effort!


The group of young people chose their community project themselves and have spent the last few weeks focussing their energy on making it work. As well as raising money, they will spend next week volunteering in the hospital.

Witney NCS Community Residential

Yesterday I joined Olympic Swimmer, Adam Whitehead at the Witney (Oxfordshire) National Citizens Service, Community Residential.


This part of the NCS is all about the young people getting stuck in, learning about teamwork and starting to think about how they can best support the local community with their Community Project.

We started the day with a drumming workshop. I am not an accomplished or confident musician, in fact I am not a musician at all and the thought of playing an instrument in front of anyone is daunting for me, but the workshop was more fun than I could have imagined and parallels to our role in society were cleverly drawn upon by the instructor.























The tents were all packed up, workshops on planning and teamwork, logo design and teeshirt painting were given.

Next week the 16 year old school leavers will get together and organise meetings to decide on and plan their Community Project. Hopefully we have given them the resources to make it happen!

I have had so much fun representing DKH Legacy Trust working on the National Citizens Service, and working with the same group and seeing their development gives me real pleasure. I can't wait to get involved with their Community Project.

Wolverhampton NCS Community Project

Wolverhampton National Citizens Service Summer of a Lifetime team change the lives of residents at Accord Housing residential care home in Tipton, building a raised flowerbed and painting the garden shed.

The team of young people from Wolverhampton started the NCS earlier this summer, spending a week together at Kinver scout camp, the next week finding out about the local community whilst staying at Wolverhampton College, learning skills and being inspired by local athletes. Tomorrow their Community Project, for which they have fundraised themselves, will be finished.

It was a pleasure to see the team getting stuck into the gardening job and chatting with residents. The team has worked together to make this project happen, a summer well spent, great job!

Oxford NCS Residential - from archery to rafting

A week long residential with a dozen teenagers in the depths of the New Forest - what could be more fun?!

Last week I found my self at the Avon Tyrrell Activity Centre, representing the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust as an athlete supporting the Oxford National Citizens Service. Most of the 16 to 24 year old school leavers have grown up in care and my job was to motivate them all to get involved with various activities and work as a team. I really wasn't sure what to expect!

I started with a brief introduction, mentioning that I'd competed in the Vancouver Paralympics, 4 years after waking up one day to be told I would never walk again after breaking my back snowboarding. Life is all about choices and if we strive to achieve goals, we give ourselves the chance of achieving them. I have been supported by an enormous amount of love and encouragement and I have no idea how I would have coped without that. A number of young people have not been so fortunate.


The first activity was archery, not my forte. Perhaps the participants gained confidence from my spectacular lack of ability although I did eventually hit the target! Then we got in canoes. Luckily I shared a boat with Tilly, one of the few participants who didn't want to capsize, but we still got drenched! Kayaking was a bit more technical and also great fun and the sun was out so we soon got dry.

A refreshing swim in the pool was followed by some raft building which were tested on the lake. The Activity Centre is wonderful and the activities were thoroughly enjoyable because all participants and volunteers got stuck in and had a go. The Oxford group proved a really nice team to work with and I look forward to getting involved with their community residential this week.

I am in the middle, precariously balanced on the raft whilst safely remaining on dry land!

Tower Hamlets Project - PAYP paralympic sports Day

Zoe Ward and her team (DiJe and Tahmina) put on a really fantastic community event yesterday at Mile End Stadium, East London. Over 140 people turned up to compete in various athletics events, from boccia, adaptive shot-put to 100m sprint and 4person team relay.

Darren Harris (former Paralympic Judo player and 2012 Goalball hopeful) and I represented the DKH Legacy Trust, encouraging participants and having the honor of presenting medals. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and brilliantly organized day.

The atmosphere was relaxed and inclusive, I was impressed at the numbers of participants am sure that everyone enjoyed the event. I even had my hand painted with henna and had a go at adaptive golf (not as easy as it sounds)!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Young Leaders never cease to amaze me with their maturity, effort and organizational skills! What a great team, supported by Simon Stevens from V, well done 2012 Young Leaders!