Town donations ensure kids summer camp goes ahead

The uni welcomed almost 70 children as they kicked off this year’s Junior Saints Summer Camp.

The Junior Saints Summer Camp is just one of the initiatives being funded through generous donations from alumni, friends, parents and staff towards the Principals’ Strategic Response Fund.

The fund was created to ensure that the University can respond quickly to the urgent needs of students, staff and local community during the pandemic.

The team at Saints Sport were keen to respond to requests to find an outlet for the children of staff, students and local community to have fun in a safe environment and play some sport before the start of the new academic year and ensure that summer isn’t a complete wipe out.

Around 1000 places have been created for children aged five to seven (P1 to P7), with a team of 17 coaches involved in delivering sport and physical activity. Activities on offer so far have include some Junior Saints favourites such as tennis, football, athletics and rugby, as well as some new activities including foot-golf, disc-golf, crazy golf, dance and Zumba - ensuring children find some new talents across the week and there’s something for everyone.

Assistant director of sports development, Duncan Caithness and his team have managed the delivery of the Summer Camp programme.

“Understanding the ‘new normal’ for delivery of these camps has been challenging at times, but a challenge everyone at Saints Sport has risen,” he said.

“It has been a real team effort in getting to this point and we are absolutely delighted to deliver this programme to support our colleagues, students and local community.

“Our plans were very fluid as we had to be responsive to the latest guidance from the Scottish Government and Sportscotland, but we were adamant the camps would be a huge success.

“We had a variety of plans in place for the different scenarios we were faced with, and with some creative thinking we were able to put in place a programme that provided children with a safe environment to play sport, mix with others and most importantly to have lots of fun.”

The Junior Saints Summer Camps run weekdays until Friday, August 7, with a limited number of spaces at most of the sessions from the weeks commencing Monday 27 July and Monday 3 August.

A separate in-service sports day is also available on Monday 10 August.

They offer the flexibility to sign up for the morning, the afternoon or all day.

This year’s camps will have a slightly different format to normal Junior Saints camps, but with a continuation of the quality service and professional coaching offered by Saints Sport: the top priority for each session will be safety and fun.

Sessions can be booked online by visiting the Saints Sport website - https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/sport/coronavirus/summer-camp/