Cllr Niknam Hussain, Mayor of Aylesbury for the Civic Year 2006 – 2007 who on his own website says:
“If you are not engaged and involved it is impossible to make a difference”, joined Aylesbury kids in what turned out to be a huge amount of fun at the Aylesbury hockey club on Saturday 30th August.
Joining him was Mary Baldwin, Leader of the Liberal Democrat group, who supported the whole project facilitated by Sports Junction™, the charity set up to drive sporting opportunities to all youngsters and to see 1 million extra kids in sport by 2012. Mary, when asked if Sports Junction™ has a positive future said: “Absolutely, just look at the turn out today. Sport has such a positive role to play – it gives them [youngsters] confidence to do other things in life.”
Both Niknam and Mary expressed support for the drive and expressed their views whole heartedly for the future movement of it right across the board. Niknam’s advice is to both go through the current channels to get to kids but also to go direct, which is very much in line with the Sport Junction™ ethos and why they use their website to reach and engage their audience.
Niknam’s son and nephew joined in the day and both enjoyed themselves immensely.
The case for the new 5 hour provision by the government was raised with both Mary and Niknam and both agreed that although it’s a great idea it needs adequate funding. Niknam said of the situation “what I find incredible is the way that over the last 30 years the fields and play areas have diminished, which makes it difficult for kids to find somewhere to play safely. But if you give kids the facilities they will use them”.
“To pick up on the 5 hour provision, there’s no point unless they work through someone like yourselves [Sports Junction] and the funding has to be there” Niknam concluded.