This is a group close to my heart as I was one of the founders almost 11 years ago and was chairman for the first eight or nine years. It's aims at that point were to bring sports organisations and people interested in sport, fitness and well being together for the benefit of all. We received grants from South Norfolk Council and were able to help numerous groups with equipment, set-up grants etc.
Today the aims of the association remain very similar and the next meeting will be looking at:
- How to come together as a community and support each individual sports club
- Grant opportunities in South Norfolk and how to access these
- How to create an awareness for sports in Hethersett, Little Melton and Great Melton
- How to work with clubs to attract more volunteers
I would like to give a huge shout out (I hate that phrase) to Great Melton Cricket Club which is raising funds for improvements to its pavilion. The club has been shortlisted as one of the Persimmon Homes Building Futures finalists and it could win up to £100K.
It all depends on how many votes the club receives. The club is one of 32 finalists from across the country in the sports category and the only one from our area. The awards are designed to support children's health in sport, education and the arts.
So in the words of the Late Hughie Green "Yes folks vote, vote, vote because it's your votes that count."
You can vote everyday from now until 19th November and can use multiple devices to register votes. The club will be mounting a media campaign in an attempt to get as many votes as possible.
First prize in the sports section is £100,000. Second prize is £50,000 and third prize is £20,000. All the finalists will receive £5,000.
This is the details of the Great Melton application:
Great Melton Cricket Club is a Clubmark accredited village club with eight junior teams, including u11 and u13 girls. Our beautiful parkland setting is the hub of our small village community. We offer a full programme of junior coaching and competitions, funded mostly by subscription, donations and fundraising activities. Having seen a large increase in female participation we would like to support these players further by ensuring we can provide suitable facilities. We are fundraising to create additional changing and toilet facilities for our girls to use, helping them to establish and maintain a lifelong habit of healthy sporting activity.
You can vote for Great Melton by going to: https://www.persimmonhomes.com/building-futures/finalists.
I will be voting daily. It's quite ironic that Great Melton Cricket Club is just a couple of miles from my home, whilst my club Hethersett and Tas Valley of which I am a vice president, is over 10 miles away. But Hethersett used to play in the village and when the club moved to Flordon I moved with it.
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Sleep is a strange thing. When you need it it doesn't come and when you don't want it you can't stay awake.
Sometimes I go to bed and sleep for eight hours. Sometimes I go to bed and just can't nod off and then sleep fitfully, continually waking up. Sometimes I have to have a senile snooze during the day and sometimes I can get away with only a tiny amount of sleep in any one 24 hour period. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to it.
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I keep coming across really interesting social media sites that I'm happy to recommend. There's a You Tube channel entitled Lost Norwich and put together by John Atkins.
Last night I learnt about the history of Woolworths in the city along with the history of various sporting venues and the ring road and there's lots more to watch as well. If you are interested just go on You Tube and search for Lost Norwich. I have a particular interest in one of the films being put together at the moment. More about that later.