Sport Relief Community Cash Funding
It's only taken three years but we are incredibly proud to say that we have finally secured some funding after being successful in applying for a Sport Relief Community Cash grant.
The scheme which is supported by Community Foundation in Wales means we can now purchase new stilts along with knee pads and wrist guards that we can then use at public bocking sessions, events and festivals and we can now move forward with community workshops as well.
Sport Relief Community Cash offers grants between £500 and £1000 for community groups and this is the first time the Welsh Bockers have managed to secure funding, after applying many times for several different funding programmes. We've always suffered because bocking is an emerging sport with not a lot of background. In fact, according to the Sports Council for Wales it's not a recognised sport at all and this in turn has hampered our attempts at gaining a development grant.
Up until now whenever we have put on workshops, taster sessions and public sessions in a sports hall and we have lent our own members stilts to the public in order to be able to carry this out. Whilst this sounds fine, it's not always practical as stilts are often adjusted or even modified to a users own preferences and ultimately we really shouldn't need to ask our members to lend their own stilts so that someone new can try bocking.
This money is fantastic news for us and the new adult and junior sized stilts will really enable us to push forward and allow people to try bocking and possibly take it further - where as before the opportunity really wasn't available to them.
