StreetGames working with Big Local

Callum Hills, Dyke House Big Local, who takes a lead role in the coordination and delivery of Get Dyke House Active, talks about the multiple benefits of working with StreetGames.

The health and wellbeing of everyone in our community motivates Get Dyke House Active, our Big Local fitness project. We’re really proud of it. But even though I help to deliver Get Dyke House Active, I can’t pretend I know everything about how to run sport activities which engage everyone – I’m still learning now. It was a natural step for our Big Local to seek support from StreetGames because they’ve got experience and ideas which could really help our community.

“StreetGames ran a 3-hour training session for us and it had an impact. Not just on our community, but on me personally.”

They encouraged us to focus on making the activities accessible to everyone. We talked about getting people of any age – parents, bairns, you name it, together and playing sport.

I and two other volunteers now run free community football sessions every week. I’m in charge but I’m not the boss. StreetGames encouraged us to think about inspiring leadership in others to motive people to take part – and I do that by giving people the chance to lead on different parts of the session. I’ll say something like “You take over the warm up” and they love it. It gives them confidence and ownership and makes them want to keep coming.

Big Local areas can access specialist support from StreetGames and 3 more new partnerships up until 2021.

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It’s difficult for parents with babies to come for a kick about if they’ve got no-one to mind them. StreetGames talked about how structuring the sessions so that different activities run at the same time allows parents to bring little ones with them. It gets rid of that barrier. Anything from bat and ball, hula hoops, skipping ropes to limbo, we make sure there’s something to keep 2 year olds to 100 year olds active at the same time we run the football.

“Recently I’ve signed up for accredited sports leadership training. I want to keep learning.”

My confidence has really grown since running the football sessions and applying the ideas StreetGames encouraged us to take on. I’m not being funny but if I hadn’t attended their workshop, I’d have run the football anyway, but it would have been just a kick about. By running the football a bit differently, it’s made me realise how many more local people Get Dyke House Active can involve.