We have been successful in an application for funding from the Big Lottery Fund. This is to help in a six month project to increase the number of members in the club and the number who regularly attend. The money covers advertising costs, staff costs and equipment costs. Our three young assistants (Georgia, Ciara and Sophie) have kindly agreed to help with this project and they will be contacting local schools in the area to advertise the club and see if there are any prospective new members that we can reach out to. Initially they will focus on primary schools in the Epping Forest District but will hopefully be able to expand to secondary schools as well as schools in the surrounding districts. This will include the Redbridge area where our name has been spread well by parents and carers in the last six months leading to quite a few new members already. 
If anyone knows the contact details of any of the schools in question, and particularly those of the SENCO's, then please let us know as we can do with all the help we can get.
The three young ladies will also be looking at advertising in the local press, on local bulletin boards and in online forums. Again, if anyone can help in that regard and provide useful information then it will help them greatly.
Of course a massive thank you to the Big Lottery Fund for awarding us this money and helping us in this way. We may not ever be lucky enough to achieve the BIG win on the lottery but it is reassuring to know that the money we spend on tickets is being used on such good causes and within our local communities!

We had a record week in terms of attendance which was great to see and the main sport this week was Hockey. We started out as usual with some drills aimed at improving the basic skills in the sport. For hockey this meant controlling the ball with the hockey stick, dribbling with the ball and then shooting. Using those skills we then moved on to some one vs. one games and then finally onto to some three on three bench hockey. This meant the group was divided in to two teams but each game involved just three members from each team and at the end of each game the three players would go to the end of the bench meaning everyone else moved along and so all players rotated and got a go.

At the end of the session Ray and the other coaches decided that the Star of the Week for their enthusiasm and participation was Shevin's sister. Very well done and this is the first time the award has been given to someone's brother or sister!

At the same time that England were giving a cricketing lesson to the Springboks in Johannesburg we at Epping Forest Sportability Club were practising cricket ourselves. The session started with some simple skills and games based around throwing and catching. This involved working in pairs initially throwing the ball to each other and catching. We then moved on  to a game of Champions where the aim of the game is the person to consistently catch the ball each time and never dropping the ball. The more times you catch it successfully the more you move up the line of children but if you drop it you move back down the line. After that we switched to throwing at a target - namely the wickets. This focused not just on the ability to throw the ball but aiming it at a specifc target.
After a short break we finished the session with some games of Three Tee cricket which, for the batter, is about striking the ball but for everyone else it is about fielding the ball before it hits the back wall.

At the end of the session the coaches decided that Shevin, one of our newer members, was Star of the Week for working hard throughout the session. Unfortunately we didnt get a photo of Shevin with the coaches as Lesley, our expert photographer this weeek, had to leave early but very well done to Shevin!

Firstly a Happy New Year to everyone from all the staff at EFSC!
It was great to see so many people back this Saturday and we even had a couple of new faces coming to check us out to see if they like the club!
We started the new term with a basketball session. This constituted a number of drills to cover some of the basic skills. As you can see in the pictures below there was some shooting practice, some passing drills and dribbling skills with the ball.

After a short break we took the final part of the session a bit more leisurely with some Boccia games, firstly with a game of Target Boccia and then a more traditional game. At the end of the session the coaches agreed that Tobias was our Star of the Week so congratulations on being our first "star" of 2016.