YOUTH REPORT
Namaste everyone and Jai Shree
Krishna
Wow... and what another great year it
has been for the SPA (UK) Youth Team.
We started 2014 by reintroducing
the SPA (UK) Youth Ball. This year
we decided the ball should take on
a mysterious masquerade theme.
The ball was held in February at the
Ramada Hotel in Warwick. 140 people
attended the event and everyone had
an amazing time. A very big thank you
goes to Divyen (Asst. Youth Leader),
Krishan (Solihull) and Reena (Preston)
who initiated, planned and ran the
event.
The second official SPA (UK) Golf
tournament was held at Birstall Golf
Club. Over 40 golfers travelled from
every corner of England to tee off and
enjoy the day. This is one of our first
events where new associate members
took part. The event would not have
been possible without Arvindbhai’s
organisational skills. He has put in a
tremendous amount of his own time
into making this event so successful.
The SPA (UK) Cricket tournament was
held at the University of Leicester.
Four branches participated in the
tournament and we were blessed with
spectacular July sunshine. This year
the tournament was won by Leicester
YOUTH
18
with the runners up being a team made
up of players from both SPA Walsall
and SPA Birmingham. We would like to
thank all the volunteers who helped
make the day a success particularly
both Mahendrabhais.
Our next big event was the 36th SPA
(UK) Annual Sports Day. We travelled
up the M6 to sunny Manchester (it
turned out to be a beautiful day), where
SPA Tameside hosted the games. Any
branch that has hosted the sports day
will appreciate the hard work needed
to pull off a good event. Tameside
did an amazing job - your hospitality
was second to none. I would like
to say a huge thank you to Poonam
(SPA Tameside) and the fantastic
team from Tameside for organising
a tremendously successful day. This
year we had 450 participants from
12 branches. We have listened to all
feedback we received in 2013 and
implemented as many as we could.
The biggest change we made this year
was to remove any restrictions on the
number of players and teams from
each branch to participate. For many
of our larger branches this means that
players were not left out and allows
more of our members to play on Sports
Day. This is something we hope we can
continue in years to come.
I would like to take this opportunity
to say a very big Thank You to my two
assistants, Mahendrabhai and Divyen,
who have organised and run each of
the youth events this year, dedicating
an incredible amount of their own
personal time to these events. Thank
you guys for all the support!
The start of a new year is a really good
time to reflect and think about the
Youth Team’s achievements over the
last year and where we really want to
take the Youth Team next year. The key
for me again this year is to continue
to increase participation and events
at a local level. It is only by building
our network locally can we increase
participation at our larger national
events. I would personally like to ask
all of our members, to support your
local Youth Teams and all the events
they plan to organise in the coming
year – after all, the Youth of today are
the future of our Samaj.
On behalf of the SPA (UK) Youth Team,
we’d like to wish you and your families
a very Happy Diwali and the very best
in the New Year.
Jai Shree Krishna
Mr Nikhil K Mistry
SPA (UK) Youth Leader (2014-15)