Lottery Dives In With Funds For North Devon Lifesavers

14.04.2008 10:26:00

A scheme to train adults and children surf life saving skills is forging ahead thanks to an Awards for All scheme grant of £5,100. The project is one of three grants in North Devon and 84 in the South West totalling £514,166, in the latest round of awards.

Woolacombe Surf Life Saving Club will receive a £5,100 grant to train a dozen adult volunteers in surf live saving skills across three summer sessions. The volunteers will then be qualified to lead teaching sessions with the club’s 80-strong ‘nipper’ section, comprising children aged eight to 13 years old. The North Devon club is experiencing a steady climb in interest and currently boats 120 members, including a 40-strong ‘youth’ section featuring 13 to 18 year olds, a ‘senior’ section featuring 19 to 30 year olds, and a ‘masters’ section for those 30 and over. All members learn basic life saving skills plus specific knowledge of coastal conditions, tide patterns, and sea currents.

Nicola Oliver, Masters Nippers Coach and Project Manager, said: “Our club teaches skills that will enable children to look after themselves in the sea, and to look after others too. Our nippers pick up knowledge of sea conditions at a young age and will be able to carry that learning into later life and some could even become lifeguards later on. Surf life saving is also a fun sport, a chance for young people to learn swimming, board paddling and beach running. The kids love it, and to Woolacombe as a whole the club provides a sense of community and fun in a family environment.

“We want to make sure we’re able to train our 8 to 13 year olds as well as we possibly can, so our funding will be spent on having a dozen or so adult volunteers take part in coaching courses that will give them the skills and knowledge to teach our nippers group properly. In the winter the kids will learn life saving techniques in swimming pools, and in summer they’ll learn running and swimming skills on the beach and even get to paddle on special nipper boards.”

Elsewhere in North Devon, West Down Pre-School will use its £1,480 grant to decorate a blank external wall with a colourful new mural. The scheme will see parents and children involved in the planning and realisation of the piece, to be overseen by a local professional artist with experience running arts workshops for children. The funding itself will go towards materials, posters, photography, and scaffolding hire, and the mural itself will be completed by mid May.

Shannon Ridd, Treasurer, said: “Our pre-school caters for children from a fairly small village community and it has a very lively atmosphere and a very enthusiastic leader! The building itself is in the grounds of the West Down Primary School, and it has one wall that is just screaming ‘paint me!’ The idea was suggested by parents and we’ll get the children involved in developing the actual mural too. The artist will sketch up the concepts they and their parents generate, and then we’ll get everybody involved in producing it.”

Another project receiving funding is Home Grown Kids, who will use its £5,150 windfall to provide a series of multicultural activities and workshops featuring art and drama.

Awards for All is the small grants scheme administered by the Big Lottery Fund on behalf of Lottery good cause funders, Arts Council England, Big Lottery Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund and Sport England. The scheme makes awards of between £300 and £10,000 to grass-roots community groups and voluntary organisations.

Mark Cotton, Big Lottery Fund Head of the South West region, said on behalf of Awards for All: “To see so many children benefit from funding in the North Devon area is wonderful. I’m delighted to say that Awards for All has been able to help out 84 projects to the tune of half a million pounds in this round of South West awards.”

For a full list of award recipients visit: http://www.awardsforall.org.uk/england/news.html

Client name: The Big Lottery Fund

Web link: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk