Local running experts shared their training and race day tips with seasoned runners and those new to the sport, at a free running seminar ahead of the BHGE 10K Running Festival on Sunday 5 May.
Organised by race organiser, Sport Aberdeen and title sponsor Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE), the evening welcomed four experienced speakers, including four time BHGE 10K women’s category winner, Fiona Brian.
Fiona, who runs for Metro Aberdeen, represented Scotland at the British Half Marathon Championships in London on 10 March and took home the top prize in the women’s division of Denmark’s Lillebaelt Half Marathon last May, shared her journey into the sport and offered personal advice to attendees ahead of race day in six weeks’ time.
Keith Gerrard, Director of Healthy and Active Communities at Sport Aberdeen, said:
“We are delighted to have Fiona share her experiences and it is my hope that her story will inspire more people to sign up for this year’s race, whether it be to beat a personal best or raise money for one of the ten affiliated charities.
“Events like the BHGE 10K Running Festival are part of Sport Aberdeen’s ongoing commitment to create opportunities, inspiring people and changing lives through sport and physical activity.”
Joining Fiona were representatives from Run4It, Sport Aberdeen’s Health and Wellness team and RGU:Wellness who covered a range of topics including nutrition, hydration, preventing injury, what to wear and how the gym can help your training.
Girls from Dyce Academy got the opportunity to try their hand at a range of exciting activities to inspire them to be more physically active.
Organised by positive female role models from Dyce Academy – English Teacher, Keri Taylor and senior pupils Rebekah Singer and Iona Copeland – in association with the Active Girls Committee, the outing to Transition Extreme showcased a number of alternative activities, including skateboarding, BMX biking and rock climbing to demonstrate the breadth of activities available to girls to encourage participation in physical activity to help maintain a healthy active lifestyle.
Development Manager – Active Communities at Sport Aberdeen, Graeme Dale, said:
“The Active Girls Committee are working very hard throughout Aberdeen to encourage more girls and young women to get involved in sport and physical activity.
“The group are fantastic female role models and this year will continue their focus on breaking down barriers currently stopping many young girls from participating in sport.”
Commenting on the outing, Keri Taylor, English Teacher at Dyce Academy, said:
“Events like today’s are really important because a lot of these girls haven’t had the chance to try activities like this and it’s good to get them out of their comfort zones.
“Extreme sports might be seen as being dominated on school trips by boys, so this gives the girls a chance to come along with their pals and do it on their terms.”
Set up by Sport Aberdeen’s Active Schools team, the ACG initiative aims to increase activity amongst girls by 10% by the end of school year 2019/20, after figures reported by Active Schools – both nationally and locally – have shown that the level of girls’ participation in extracurricular sport tends to drop over the course of their time at secondary school.
The committee itself comprises of girls from each academy across the city who endeavour to inspire their peers and increase the number of girls taking part in regular sport and physical activity.
Local businesses, Dundas Consultants and Apollo, have shown their continued support to the BHGE 10K Running Festival by sponsoring the running festival for another year.
Sport Aberdeen and title sponsor Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE) are delighted to welcome both companies back to the sponsor line up for 2019.
Dundas Consultants have supported the event since 2014 and Apollo Offshore Engineering, since 2016.
Sport Aberdeen’s Director of Healthy and Active Communities, Keith Gerrard, said:
“We are delighted to welcome back recurring sponsors Dundas and Apollo for 2019, joining other local organisations to back the event and help raise money for our ten affiliated charities.
As well as sponsoring the BHGE 10K Running Festival and Family Fun Run, employees from Apollo and Dundas Consultants will demonstrate their sporting prowess with teams taking part in 2019’s Corporate Team Challenge.
Richard Woodhouse, Director at Dundas Consultants, said:
“It’s terrific to see so many people participating in sport at the BHGE 10k. It always feels like such a positive experience for everyone there either through that sense of personal achievement at taking part or for many because they’re raising money for charities that are important to them. I hope Dundas will continue our involvement for years to come.”
Jonathan White, Business Development Director at Apollo added:
“Apollo look forward to not only sponsoring but also participating in this important sporting event for Aberdeen. We are proud to have supported the running festival for a number of years and have great fun as a company entering runners and raising money for charity!”
With the 10 weeks to 10K training programme now in full swing and just six weeks to go until race day, race organiser Sport Aberdeen and title sponsor Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE) are urging people to sign up for the race in good time to avoid disappointment. Over half the spaces have already been filled, but there is still time to secure your place.
For more information about the BHGE 10K Running Festival or to sign up for 2019, please visit www.sportaberdeen.co.uk/bhge-10k
Active Schools Aberdeen was recently awarded funding to recruit a designated Active Schools Assistant at Kittybrewster Primary School.
The new post, which has been funded by Kittybrewster Primary’s pupil equity fund, has been filled by 22 year old, BSc Sports and Exercise Science graduate, Joanna Bell.
Joanna’s role will focus on helping close the pupil attainment gap, by increasing participation levels in sport and physical activity of inactive and hard to reach groups of children and young people within the school and wider across the city.
This will be delivered through coaching sessions and ensuring that more high quality sports and physical activity opportunities are available within the school’s curricular and extracurricular activities.
Commenting on the appointment, Graeme Dale, Development Manager – Active Communities at Sport Aberdeen said:
“Sport Aberdeen is committed to creating opportunities, inspiring people and changing lives. This new appointment will help ensure pupils from Kittybrewster School are being exposed to the best possible opportunities to participate in sports and physical activity from a young age.
“Joanna’s main focus will be to work with specific pupils to increase their participation and as a result positively impact on their attainment levels, thus helping to close the attainment gap.”
Joanna joins two other Active School Assistants, Scott Mitchell, based at Orchard Brae School and Victor Omondi, based at St Machar Academy.
Councillor John Wheeler, Education Operational Delivery Convener, said:
“We have been helping schools and headteachers to make effective use of Pupil Equity Funding to help close the poverty related attainment gap and we are fully supportive of the initiative with Kittybrewster School and Sport Aberdeen.
“Aberdeen is blessed with some fabulous sporting facilities and now that we have a third Active Schools Assistant in the city, pupils, regardless of their background, have an even greater opportunity increase their participation in, and enjoyment of, sports.”
Award winning registered charity Sport Aberdeen which delivers the Active Schools programme in partnership with sportscotland across Aberdeen, has been creating opportunities for school pupils to get involved in sport and physical activity for more than a decade.
Local charity, Sport Aberdeen, has today reached a major milestone in its journey to improve digital services for its members, signalling a step away from traditional printed material to a more efficient digital interface.
The Application Programming Interface (API) – which went live on Sport Aberdeen’s website today (11 March) – offers customers across the city an easy to use, online timetable that provides real time group exercise information across its 18 facilities at the click of a button.
Sport Aberdeen’s Director of Performance and Planning, Jill Franks, said:
“Going live with our new digital timetable is an exciting step forward for Sport Aberdeen, especially at a time when digital technologies are at the forefront of Community Planning Aberdeen’s (CPA) Local Outcome Improvement Plan (LOIP).
“It is essential to the future of the city that customer focused services respond to the evolving needs and growing opportunities of digital technologies.
“The purpose of this improvement is to ensure that booking classes and getting active with Sport Aberdeen is a more fluid process for customers and that we have the most up to date information available in an easy to access format.”
In addition, moving to a more customer focused, digital interface will considerably reduce Sport Aberdeen’s environmental impact.
In today’s environment of austerity, Sport Aberdeen has proven that investment into leisure facilities can have a big impact on the local community.
Since its inception in 2010, Sport Aberdeen has been determined to find ways to reinvigorate its facilities, while encouraging the wider community to participate in physical activity and has invested over £1.9M upgrading and refurbishing its facilities across the city since 2016.
Get active @ Sheddocksley – the seventh facility out of a programme of ten facilities to receive investment from Sport Aberdeen – has been transformed at a cost of £350,000, to one of the most contemporary wellbeing and fitness facilities in the city, reducing its risk of closure and ensuring the sustainability of the facility for the foreseeable future.
Previously a failing and unused 1970’s sports centre in one of the city’s most deprived areas, prone to vandalism and antisocial behaviour, Get active @ Sheddocksley is now a dynamic, accessible and vibrant local focal point that is a hive of activity.
Hailed as a beacon for what can be achieved through community collaboration, Get active @ Sheddocksley has been firmly re-established, pride of place, within its local community.
Managing Director of the charitable organisation, Alistair Robertson, said staff were delighted to show off the new facility following the renovation project:
“The refurbishment of Get active @ Sheddocksley was a big project for us, but it has been worthwhile as it will help secure the long term future of the facility.
“It is important that we encourage and inspire people to get active. Facilities in the heart of the community, like Get active @ Sheddocksley, can lead the way in helping people lead more active lives, both in terms of their physical health and mental wellbeing.”
The pot holed car park and crumbing façade have also been resurfaced, illuminated and brought to life through a bespoke mural designed in collaboration with residents, by award winning local artists, which has helped to create a sense of local civic pride.
In addition, a team of nearly 30 keen Sport Aberdeen staff and Board Members, led by Chairman Colin Taylor, also descended on the facility to volunteer their time repainting external walls and undertaking various landscaping works, supported by Sport Aberdeen’s grounds maintenance company idverde, ahead of the centre’s relaunch.
Since the start of the project, membership numbers have increased from 180 to 970, opening hours have been extended, local jobs have been created and antisocial behaviour is almost obsolete, with no significant incidents reported.
For Sport Aberdeen, the project has also been the catalyst for other developments and the surplus generated will be reinvested into the creation of new opportunities for the local community, with money already reinvested into the conversion of the long abandoned bowling green into a community growing space, which was a direct result of the community consultation,
Get active @ Sheddocksley is a true success story and is vital in demonstrating how partnerships within the community can deliver outcomes that achieve over and above the return on investment, thus inspiring the community to get active.
The 2018 Chairman’s Awards proved to be a great success again this year, with not one, not two…but three winners!
The first winner to be presented with the Peoples Award of the Year, was Jon Lurie.
Jon started working with Sport Aberdeen in February 2010 in the position of Leisure Attendant at Alex Collie Sports Centre, before being promoted to Health and Wellness Advisor in October 2013. The recipient of August 2018’s Employee of the Month, Jon was presented with this award for the passion and person centred approach he shows in his role.
Sport Aberdeen received a letter with glowing praise for Jon from a former participant recovering from prostate cancer who had been referred to light circuit training classes, of which Jon led. The participant could not speak more highly of Jon and wished to thank him for helping overcome a number of hurdles, one of which was getting back into physical activity which had been a large part of his life.
This particular story is one example of how Jon positively impacts the lives of his participants. Jon continually evaluates the needs of his participants to ensure that the activities remain relevant and they get the most out of their classes. The passion and dedication that Jon shows in his job is why he deserves to win the Peoples Nomination. Well done Jon!
The second winner of the Chairman’s Awards to be presented with Employee of the Year, was Ally Barron.
Ally was the recipient of Employee of the Month in March 2018 in recognition for his ongoing hard work and contribution to the successful and continued growth in membership sales. Ally has led teams and venues to achieve a substantial and sustained increase in membership sales leading to the increase in customers and investment opportunities.
Lastly, the team at Get active @ Sheddocksley were presented with the Chairman’s Award for Team of the Year.
The recipients of December 2018’s Employee of The Month in special recognition of their sheer guts and determination during the lead up to the reopening of Get active @ Sheddocksley. The team remained positive despite multiple delays to the project, staying focussed and always ensuring the customers were kept up to date with progress.
Congratulations to Jon, Ally, the Get active @ Sheddocksley team and all the 2018 Employee of the Month winners!
Registered charity, Sport Aberdeen has launched a new kind of workout that will leave you beaming and flexing for more.
Designed to replicate the strength training undertaken by professional gymnasts using the specialist equipment available at Sport Aberdeen’s Alex Collie Gymnastics Performance Centre, the newly launched GymFit class will provide a fresh and fun way to ‘Get active’ regardless of your gymnastic ability.
Taught by professional gymnastics coaches, the class consists of a variety of strength and conditioning exercises that focus on cardio, core and upper and lower body, leaving participants feeling fitter, healthier and one step closer to achieving that gymnast physique.
Sport Aberdeen’s Gymnastics Pathways Coordinator, Aynsley Henderson, said:
“GymFit has been designed to offer a fun way to help adults get active and pick up some new skills in the process. Taught by experienced and professional coaches, the class utilises the wide range of specialist equipment available at Alex Collie Gymnastics Performance Centre.”
Commenting on the new class, Keith Gerrard, Director of Healthy and Active Communities at Sport Aberdeen said:
“Sport Aberdeen is always looking at fresh and innovative ways to inspire people to ‘Get active’ across the city.
“We hope this new gymnastics themed fitness class will create the opportunity for people with an interest in gymnastics to learn new skills while having fun and keeping active.”
GymFit classes will take place at Sport Aberdeen’s Alex Collie Gymnastics Performance Centre on Wednesday’s and Thursday’s from 9.30 – 10.15am and on Friday’s from 12.15 – 12.45pm.
An initiative to beat hunger in the school holidays has recently been recognised for its outstanding service to the community, at the installation of the new Principal and Vice Chancellor of Aberdeen University, Professor George Boyne.
The project was presented with the inaugural University of Aberdeen Principal’s Award for Outstanding Service to the Community, at the ceremony conducted by the Duchess of Rothesay, Camilla Parker Bowles, at Elphinstone Hall, King’s College on 16 January.
Sport Aberdeen’s Director of Healthy and Active Communities, Keith Gerrard, said:
“For Food and Fun to be recognised at such as prestigious event as the Installation of the Principle and Vice Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen was a great honour.
“The project has made an enormous positive impact on those most in need during the school holidays and has only been achieved by the range of partners working collaboratively and sharing their expertise. Sport Aberdeen is proud to be a partner of this Aberdeen City Council project.”
This recognition follows on from Food and Fun’s success at the 2018 Aberdeen’s Sports Awards, where the project deservedly won the Community Sports Project of the Year Award.
The Food and Fun project which is supported by Sport Aberdeen, Community Food Initiative North East (CFINE), Police Scotland, sportscotland, Aberdeen FC Community Trust (AFCCT) and the Russell Anderson Foundation, was originally initiated to combat ‘holiday hunger’, the serious problem of children who rely heavily on their daily free school lunches that are not available to them over school holidays.
A survey to obtain citizens views on Community Justice has been launched by Community Planning Aberdeen’s Community Justice Group.
Community justice involves a diverse range of services, including health, housing, social work, third sector, as well as the police and courts, working together to repair harm to the community, address offending behaviour and support reintegration back into society.
Community Justice partners in Aberdeen are working to improve outcomes for people involved in the justice system, their families and communities.
In order to inform this work, they want to find out what the priorities, views and experiences are of those involved and to learn from them.
They also want to help communities better understand how the system and services function, to enable citizens support this work and make communities safer and stronger places to live, work and play.
According to statistics nearly two thirds (63%) of Scots do not know what community justice is* or its aims to empower communities and to provide people with the information needed to actively participate.
Aberdeen City Council’s Co-Leader, Councillor Jenny Laing, Chair of Community Planning Aberdeen Board, said: “We need citizens to be part of an effective Community Justice system to ensure that our communities are safer and stronger and by doing so making them better places to live, work and play.
“By raising awareness of what Community Justice is we want communities to actively participate in Community Justice. I would encourage citizens to take part in the survey as the results will help us to further develop community engagement in a matter that affects all of us.”
Jonathan Smith, Chair of Aberdeen Civic Forum and Aberdeen Community Council Forum, said: “It is essential that we all listen to the views of our communities, the experiences of those affected, stories shared by our neighbours and explore ways to be safer and more supported together.
”This is an opportunity for the people of Aberdeen to have a meaningful say in shaping the future of Community Justice, and to be part of making a lasting difference for the future of the city.”
The consultation is now open until 01 February 2020. Please click on the link below to take part in the consultation.
Paper copies of the questionnaire can be obtained by emailing: communityjusticeforall@aberdeencity.gov.uk or by writing to:
Community Justice Officer
Aberdeen City Council
Business Hub 11, 2nd Floor West
Marischal College
Broad Street
Aberdeen
AB10 1AB
The survey coincides with the Scotland-wide Second Chancers campaign, which has been launched by the national body Community Justice Scotland. It aims to raise awareness of what community justice is and building confidence in it as an effective sentencing option that reduces offending, reduces the number of victims and improves lives.
Sentences served in the community are more effective than sentences served in prison. Yet data has shown that nearly two thirds of the public don’t know what community justice is: only 21% of Scots agree that Scotland operates a smart justice system that is robust, effective and fair.*
Aimed at changing perceptions of what justice should look like in 21 century Scotland, Second Chancers is centred around the voices of those whose lives have been touched by the justice system.
Comprising of a series of short documentary films and a touring audio exhibition, the campaign tells authentic and raw stories of success and failure, change and transformation, obstacles and helping hands.
To watch ‘Second Chancer’ please click on the link: https://secondchancers.tv/
*Attitudes towards community justice. Independent research commissioned by Community Justice Scotland, published January 2018.