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drinkanddrugsnews
| October 2013
Recovery month |
Activities
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
on the move. Watch out for recovery month 2014.
Birmingham Recovery Community
https://www.facebook.com/BirminghamRecoveryCommunity?fref=ts
Friends of the UK Recovery Federation
https://www.facebook.com/groups/UKRecoveryFederation/
Alistair Sinclair is UKRF director
In it to win
Giving something back to the community
gave a winning formula to Doncaster’s
recovery games, says Stuart Green
Every year at New Beginnings, part of Rotherham
Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust,
we look to raise sponsorship for Aurora, a local cancer
respite charity. This year, one of the staff at New
Beginnings, Neil Firbank, came up with the
brainwave of the recovery games. The idea came
from discussing with a colleague and group
members what had inspired them over the past year and the Olympics and Para-
Olympics kept coming up – actually seeing and believing in others who had
achieved something to be proud of appeared to be the main reasons. So we
decided to go ahead with the recovery games.
The original idea was to have local teams competing against each other, while
raising money for charity. This would give them the opportunity to give something
back to their local community, learn to work together in a team with staff and each
other as well as reducing stigma within our community. We were looking to attract
between four and eight teams of up to ten members. Once we got the message out
with the venue – a local activity centre with its own marina, part of Doncaster
Cultural Leisure Trust (DCLT) – it became apparent that this was going to go viral. We
closed registration with 22 teams and had to turn away four further teams of ten.
The day began with a zumba demonstration as a warm-up, with people
competing against each other in eight rounds of events. These included a
gladiator duel climb, low rope challenge, kata-canoe race, eliminator run, team
archery, the boom blaster, giant buzz wire and a demolition wrecking ball.
The event was pitched in the summer holidays to attract a family atmosphere
and there was plenty for spectators to do, including a bouncy castle, face painter
and a circus entertainer mingling with the crowd. The children competed in a
space hopper grand national, with the fastest time over three age groups being
awarded recovery games gold medals.
At New Beginnings it was a frantic week leading up to it – the arts and crafts
room was abuzz making banners, costumes and the podium for the winners. We
gained a lot of support from people we work in partnership with, who kindly
donated time or money to the event. This resulted in every participant getting a
medal presented by the mayor of Doncaster and our assistant director, Ian Joustra,
with the winners receiving gold medals and a commemorative shield. During the
lunch break we had live jazz and a raffle for locally sourced produce from the place
where our service users volunteer. As well as entertaining the crowds, a strong
message of health and wellbeing was promoted throughout the whole day, with
a number of stalls from the community fire safety team, local carers groups,
complementary therapy taster sessions and free physical health checks.
On the morning, it was pouring down with rain and we really didn’t knowwhat
to expect. But suddenly coaches, cars and people started turning up in their
masses. We had more than 300 people attend. There was a clear buzz in the air
and a competitive but respectful edge for each other among the teams. The local
campers thought the Martians had landed and could not work out what was
happening to their tranquil camping site next door. As the weather improved,
more people arrived and the catering facilities did not stop all day.
The culmination of the day was a united feeling that recovery could be fun,
competitive and a genuinely viable option. We had teams from Scunthorpe,
Grimsby, Doncaster, Chesterfield, York, Rotherham and Sheffield, to name just a
few, and more than £400 was raised for charity. Feedback is still pouring in as to
how much people enjoyed the day itself, from local community members, staff
and of course those in recovery. This looks like it’s going to become an annual
event, with York expressing an interest to take it forward next year.
Oh, and finally, there was no fix but New Beginnings won – all that training
paid off!
Stuart Green is service manager at New Beginnings, www.drughub.co.uk
‘...it became apparent that this was
going to go viral. We closed registration
with 22 teams and had to turn away
four further teams of ten.’
‘We gained a lot of support from people
we work in partnership with... a strong
message of health and wellbeing was
promoted throughout the whole day.’