A group of Sports Ambassadors from year nine and ten attended a conference at iPro Stadium on 10th December 2013. Gemma Ashford, Jamie Pearsall, Megan Maddocks, Chloe Chandler, Sophie Sims and myself, Mieka Fryatt were all invited to join many more young ambassadors from across the county to discuss sports and what it really means to us.
The day consisted of an opening ceremony, meeting the very famous Paralympic runner, Sam Ruddock and visiting his workshop, plus two other workshops and a closing ceremony. The conference was a great way of expressing our opinions on sport, meeting new people and other personal experiences.
Sam Ruddock spoke in the opening ceremony, telling us about his life and how he became a Paralympion. In a lot of Paralympions, their disorders are visible but Sam’s isn’t. Sam has Cerebral Palsy. It is a condition marked by impaired muscle coordination.
Sam gave an inspirational speech in both the opening ceremony and his workshop. He showed us a video of himself racing with other Paralympic runners which was spontaneous. He really inspired myself and others to be the best we can be.
Two young girls around the age of 16-24 spoke to us in Sam’s workshop about their careers in sport. They started with little and have come really far. Sam and the girls really made us all believe in ourselves more than we did before.
The second workshop allowed us to be creative. We had to come up with an idea for a school to introduce more of a particular sport. We heard many great thoughts within the group, including our own which won! Our idea was to invest some money to buy equipment for a school hockey team. We may take forward our idea and actually focus on creating a Paulet High hockey team.
The third workshop’s aim was to boost our confidence, which succeeded for myself and other sports ambassadors too. We were put into groups with people we had never met before or people we had met earlier in the day and had to write and perform a short scene about animals in a sport. At first we all felt a bit silly, acting like animals but soon realized why we were doing this. It was to boost our confidence, and it really did work.
