News: Carly’s in the running for Volunteer of the Year Award

The awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of Nottinghamshire’s sporting successes, both professional and amateur, and culminate in a special presentation ceremony which takes place this evening (Thursday 31^st October) at the East Midlands Conference Centre.

Carly is one of three finalists up for the Volunteer of the Year Award. We wish her lots of luck!

Read her nomination below:

Carly joined the College in September 2018 and signed up to volunteer on a Sport England project at the beginning of the year. The ​‘Sport for Good’ project is lead by Laureus linking with Nottingham University, Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham College delivering sport and physical activity to local primary school children through social engagement topics.

Carly was assigned to work at High Bank Primary school in Clifton with a team of university students to work with a group of 30 year six pupils between October and December 2018. She lead and supported the six-week sessions delivering key themes (responsibility, team work, communication and resilience) through sport leadership. Pupils were asked to interact with the sessions which aimed to help to positively develop the pupil’s personal characteristics. 

The next part of the project took place between January and March 2019 over a six-week period, when the pupils planned for a social action project to take place in their local community. Through sport activities and group cohesion the group developed plans to support, ​‘Helping Homeless’ with care packages and redecorating areas in the community. 

The final part of the project is the delivery of the social action plans in the community, due to take place sometime in the next few months. 

Carly has volunteered over 50 hours of time to deliver at these sessions and spent over 10 hours planning for the sessions. The quality of Carly’s delivery has been outstanding and as a result the project organisers have asked her to be an ambassador for the project next year. As part of this role she will recruit new student volunteers to the project and support and help with their training and development. 

Carly has learnt a lot from being involved in this National Sport England project and said: ​“During my time I have been involved in ​‘The Sport for Good’ project I have thoroughly enjoyed participating and promoting sport and wellbeing whilst working with pupils, including some who face a lot of challenges in life. I enjoyed involving myself with the children as I saw how much they were engaged in the activities. I have also learned lessons myself about self-responsibility and my own independence.” 

The project team said of Carly: ​“When Carly is leading a session, she conducts herself so professionally and always has the attention of the children in the groups due to her dynamic and engaging style of leading. She has been an asset to the programme and we are extremely excited to see her develop even further in the coming year.”