Skipton Parkrun

After a year of planning, fundraising and hard work by local volunteers, the Skipton Parkrun started on September 2013. Parkrun is a national programme offering free timed five-kilometre runs every week on Saturdays at 9am in 300 local parks. Skipton Parkrun in Aireville Park averages 75 runners each week.

It takes a significant amount of pre-planning and fundraising to get parkrun off the ground. A core team of five volunteers worked together to produce an event plan for the park. Once this had been approved the group then needed to raise the £3,000 to set up the, a one-off payment that covers all the set up and running costs.

After this there was a training session that was delivered by a parkrun volunteer mentor and each Skipton parkrun lead volunteer then visited two other parkruns to shadow the event management.

A date was set for the very first parkrun and 194 people turned up. Each week there is a designated volunteer Run Director that manages the event and results. On average there are five volunteers helping run the weekly parkruns. This includes setting up the course, marshalling the runners, timing, handing out position tokens, scanning barcodes and packing up the course.

Skipton parkrun is now mentoring one other parkrun run director and training up other volunteer run directors for Skipton.

The Skipton parkrun group was official formed in February 2012 after a several months of informal discussions. It was formed due to additional lead volunteers coming to light through the Friends of Aireville park group. There are five core members of the group with an additional 2-3 currently being trained up.

Craven College Rugby squad

The rugby students at Craven College have organised and delivered six football tournaments with the Craven Sports Partnership, which has meant that approximately 100 Craven primary school pupils have been able to take part in rugby in some form, giving them an opportunity that they would not otherwise have had. This has had such success that it is now a yearly fixture and involves 12 weeks of coaching whole classes of years 4,5,6 and 7, in which everybody is given the chance to take part, not just those who are good at sport.

The group also has volunteered at Skipton RUFC and helped out at their Easter Camp coaching rugby and developing skills. Volunteering during the week is one thing, but students who volunteer during the holidays show a greater degree of commitment. The impact has been that the Easter camp is now sustainable and more children were able to hone their individual skills to a greater level than would have otherwise been possible.

The activity that makes this group so different from most other sports volunteers is that they have also volunteered to listen to primary school pupils reading. These have been pupils who have reading abilities well below average for their age. The greatest achievement was for one student who, through listening, helped a pupil to increase their reading age from age 7 to age 11! All students willingly meet weekly at college for an 8am start. The impact on the primary school children has not only been quantifiable in terms of increasing their reading age but also in their engagement in school overall, with a subliminal message that sport can be used to engage pupils on a number of levels. The impact on the squad and on the Craven area has been very positive in that the students themselves have increased in confidence through greater understanding of the whole person rather than just from a sport perspective. This has fed through into their coaching and their overall aspirations for the future.

Chris Gregson

Chris Gregson has made an outstanding contribution to young people's sport in the Craven area. As a referee and football coach at Grassington Juniors and Threshfield Primary School, as well as fundraiser and contributor to all local sports.

Chris is the landlord of the Fountaine Inn in Linton and himself a keen sportsman who is keen to encourage all children to participate in sport, whatever their level of ability.

He gives up his time to organise and run football practices and tournaments for boys and girls. HIs kindness and sense of humour give children confidence and make it fun. He is always positive, knows each child well and how to get the best from them. The example he sets in sportsmanship and as a role model is impeccable. He has also singlehandedly, through sponsored challenges, raised thousands of pounds for sports equipment in local schools and for Grassington Juniors.

Threshfield Primary School headteacher Susan Payne said: "Chris is a coach and a referee - all this is unpaid and takes a lot of time. We would not be able to provide the sports equipment we do without Chris. We are all very grateful to him."

Walter Tooby

Ingleton has always been proud of its heated open air swimming pool, especially since it featured in an article "The 100 Best Swimming Pools in the World" a few years ago.

And that kind of recognition is mainly down to one man - Walter Tooby, who for 40 years has maintained the pool and organised many fundraising events to keep it going. After devoting almost all of his spare time to maintaining and improving the pool, he is now manager. Improvements he has been instrumental in achieving have been new changing rooms for the disabled, renewal of the poolside surrounds and the erection of a large gazebo to provide poolside shelter.

Walter has seen several generations of schoolchildren learn to swim in the pool and many of them return regularly as adults with their own children.

Local schoolchildren use the pool often, and every year there is a swimming gala and some years an 'It's a Water Knockout' event. It is also hired by groups from outside the village and is often hired out for children's birthday parties.

None of this success would be possible, say residents, without Walter's "cheerful and enthusiastic devotion to the pool."

His latest project is a splash pool, for which planning permission has been given as the pool celebrates its 80th year - a fitting tribute to Walter for all his hard work.