Skoolsports celebrated its 1st anniversary with the Edinburgh Easter camp held at Mary Erskine School in Edinburgh. We again had record numbers attending during the week with ages ranging from 5 to 16.

Our coaching team for the week had an international flavour with Fergus Dunn returning from Barcelona where he plays in the Spanish league for his 3rd Skoolsports Camp and Stephan Tschierschwitz from Mannheim, Germany making his first appearance at Skoolsports. This provided children at camp the chance to learn from top players and coaches with experience of international hockey in Europe.

The Easter camp was also the first camp to run an Early Bird session for P1-P3 children every morning. This was enormous fun for all involved as the kids had the opportunity to learn the basic skills of the game through 10 pin hockey and other dribbling exercises. The energy levels of all the young ones, and in particular Sholto and Ellie, made sure everyone including the coaches were on their toes.

Each morning the camp commenced with a warm up, stretching and hockey related exercises which included footwork, balance, reactions and teamwork scenarios. The rest of the days were filled with skill sessions to cover all the basic skills of the game, competitions, tournament games and full demonstrations using the international experiences of all the coaching staff.

Colin Johnstone, Grange and Scotland Goalkeeper attended camp for two afternoons and spent time with every group at the camp to give them the opportunity to score past an international goalkeeper. With players shooting from all angles, the Scotland keeper was caught cold on several occasions with Caitlin, Tom (and in fact most of the players) hitting the backboard all too frequently!

The Skoolsports stick game was again highly popular with Bethan securing victory for the 2nd camp in a row. Skoolsports also introduced a accuracy skill game to celebrate Easter. Every player had 2 chances to hit a ball 40 yards towards a hoop in the middle of the pitch with the furthest away being eliminated each time. In the final 4 players went head to head and Natalie withstood the pressure to win the super-sized Easter Egg. We also had two birthdays during the week and Skoolsports are always up for a celebration so cakes and presents were given to both Ali and Amber to mark their special day!

The camp closed with a presentation of prizes from sticks to sweets to the standout players of the camp and the competition winners. In addition all players received drinks, prizes, waterbottles and of course an Easter egg!

Skoolsports has grown over the last 12 months and every camp has been better attended and more fun than the one before. Undoubtedly it is you who make the camps what they are so a big thanks to everyone who attended and thanks to all the coaches for the hard work they put in over the 5 days.

Due to popular demand there will be a Skoolsports Summer Camp at MES 5 - 7 August 2009. There are only limited spaces so please register as soon as possible to reserve a space and avoid disappointment.

Upcoming camps:

August 5th - 7th (MES, Edinburgh)
August 12th - 14th (Hillhead, Aberdeen)
August 19th - 22nd (Lisburn, Northern Ireland)
October 2009 (MES, Edinburgh)
December 2009 (MES, Edinburgh)