YOUTH
NIKHIL mistry
Namaste and Jai Shree Krishna What an interesting and challenging year 2016 has been for the SPA( UK) Youth Team. This year we organised 3 events within the Youth Team, including the first Sports Day in a number of years to be hosted by HQ.
Firstly I would like to welcome a new member to the SPA( UK) Youth Team – Hiren Prajapati from Wellingborough. It is great to have some fresh blood and ideas coming forward.
The 4th annual SPA( UK) Golf tournament was held at Stonebridge Golf Club in Coventry. Around 40 golfers travelled from every corner of England to tee off and enjoy the day. The event is growing year on year, bringing together members who you would not regularly see. The weather was amazing this year, creating the ideal atmosphere for the game. The day was rounded off with a barbeque. The event would not have been possible without the excellent organisation skills of Gulabbhai, Gitaben and Divyen. Gulabbhai and his wife Gitaben has put in a lot of their own time into making this event successful. The event raised a total of £ 732 for the 2016 SPA( UK) charity.
The SPA( UK) Cricket tournament was held at the University of Leicester. This year four branches participated in the tournament and we were blessed with spectacular July sunshine. This year the tournament was won by Leicester, and Bradford taking the runners-up spot. We would like to thank all the volunteers who helped make the day a success, particularly Mahendrabhai and the team from Leicester, who helped plan the day.
This year we saw a couple of regional darts competitions held throughout the Midlands. The first was hosted by Leicester in January. It was a great way to shake of the winter blues and come out and enjoy a game of darts. I have personally never played, however I had a great time. There were two categories, Pro and Amateurs. It was great to see a wide
range of skills and age ranges coming together. The second was held by Coventry later in the year.
Our next big event was the 38th SPA( UK) Annual Sports Day. This year’ s Sports Day was hosted by the SPA( UK) Youth Team. Anyone who has hosted this event will appreciate the hard work needed to make it successful. So this was particularly difficult without a hosting branch. Divyen put a lot of his time and effort into making this year’ s event a success. Without his leadership, persistence and eagerness, there was a chance that for the first time Sports Day would not have gone ahead. On the day we had a few branches that supported us with the running of the day. A big thank you goes to Coventry, Rugby, Tameside and Wellingborough; without you guys the day would not have been able to run.
This year we had 270 participants from 13 branches. This figure is far fewer when compared to the previous
16 vol. 41 | Prajapati Sandesh 2016