Case Study Strathmore Cricket Club & Strathmore Community Rugby Trust

The project programme comprises:

• Sporting memories sessions delivered communities and settings

• Arts, cultural, learning, and therapeutic activities that reflect the interests and needs of participants month, all of whom are living with a long-term health condition and who benefit from the social contact and physical activities that the sessions offer.

Strathmore Cricket Club and Strathmore Community Rugby Trust are working together to deliver a health and well-being programme which seeks to contribute to the physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing of adults in the Forfar and Kirriemuir areas.

Strathmore Cricket Club is a community-based sports club with an overt commitment to utilising the sport of cricket and the club’s facilities for wider community benefit and as a tool to change people’s lives. The Club has an inclusive cricket offer for people of all ages and abilities. The Club is currently used for a Cricket Café, a Dementia Meeting Centre, ccommunity meetings and informal learning activities.

Strathmore Community Rugby Trust is a well-established and highly regarded charitable organisation with a strong commitment to using sport to achieve important social and health outcomes, including improvements to mental health and well-being. It seeks to develop people through rugby and through its community projects including autism-friendly rugby, walking rugby, rugby, rugby academy (secondary school aged participants), Brechin High School curriculum project, Strathie Pups (under Impaired Rugby.

The two organisations recognise the potential for improving outcomes through effective collaboration and have been working together for two years to deliver multi-activity sports camps as part of the Angus Holiday Food and Summer Fun initiatives.

This project presented the organisations with a first opportunity to build and deliver something together, capitalising on their respective networks and strengths. It seeks to prevent mental illness by delivering opportunities that help people to feel positive about themselves, their lives and the future. It delivers a programme of mental and emotional health and wellbeing, promoting activities open to the whole community but targeted particularly towards people experiencing significant wellbeing challenges including social isolation, poverty, unemployment and significant changes to their health and lifestyle.

Activities are delivered by a combination of project staff, skilled freelance practitioners, and external providers.

The project seeks to complement and add value to the successful initiatives already operating, strengthening Forfar Loch and its surrounds as a mini hub for wellbeing activities.

The project benefits from funding provided through the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund (Phase One) and the Tayside & Fife Regional Sporting Partnership (TFRSP) Sport & Physical Activity Fund. The opportunity to bring these two funding sources together has made it possible to run the project over a longer period of time, allowing it to become established, build its reputation and make a positive contribution to participants’ lives.

Evaluation to date has been light touch and focused on operational matters and ensuring that the sessions offered are meeting the needs and satisfying the interests of participants. Almost all feedback has been positive, and participants’ sense of enjoyment is evident in their engagement and participation.

As the project moves forward, the evaluative focus will shift to longer term and more significant outcomes. It will gather information on the extent to which participants feel relaxed, feel good about themselves, feel interested in, connected and close to other people, feel confident are empowered to make decisions, feel optimistic about the future and feel useful. These indicators will be used selectively in ways which reflect the delivery contexts and needs of participants.

- for people of all ages. It has also supported Communities Team.

The next stage in the project’s development will be the launch of a “sports and social club for older people” initiative, which will offer a programme of activities that run throughout the week in Forfar - offering older people opportunities to make friends, socialise, reconnect with sport and have fun. This new phase of the work will include a wider range of national and local partners including The Sporting Memories Foundation, Age Scotland and a group of local sports and social organisations which share the aims of reducing isolation and promoting wellbeing.

Appendix 1

Angus Sport and Physical Activity Planning Partnership - List of Group Members

Angus Council | sportscotland | Dundee and Angus College

ANGUSalive | NHS Tayside | Voluntary Action Angus