Techman Rugby festival 2018

Two of our trustees Geraint Morgan and Ken MacRae went to the village of Spinkhill in Derbyshire where much of the village is occupied by Mount Saint Mary’s College and its grounds. Geraint and Ken went to support and thank Sam Haddock an 11-year-old pupil at the school. Last year Sam was at the feeder prep school Barlborough Hall where he had the idea of a running a rugby tournament in aid of READY. His parents Jon and Emma, encouraged him with his idea to assist disabled people to take part in sport and activities and thus the Techman Rugby Festival was born. This year the challenge expanded with six schools entering teams in the under 11 competition and three teams in the under 12 competition.

Also in attendance were Martin Mansel and Toby Gold, who although not associated with the sport of rugby, were inspirational for the youngsters taking part. Martin – swimmer, coach, consultant, educationalist, inventor and who has been involved in disability sport since 1975. Martin very kindly ran a disability awareness sessions for the children present which involved a game of rounders using limited vision glasses to simulate different types of impaired vision.

Toby, a Paralympian T33 wheelchair racer who won a Silver medal in Rio 2016 and who also is Parton of READY, ran sessions with the children speaking of his experience in wheelchair racing and allowing the children to ask questions such as “How do you get upstairs in your chair?”
READY must thank Techman Engineering for their support and especially Jon Haddock who presented the trophy to Nottingham U-11 the winners of the Challenge. Most importantly our thanks go to the Headmaster and all the staff of Mount Saint Mary’s College for giving of their time.

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