Upside Down Sports Club
Restarting the club after inactivity
The Upside Down Sports Club is an environment where wheelchair users can participate in sports and socialize in a welcoming, understanding environment. By enabling independence and enhancing self-esteem, the Club helps children with disabilities reach their full potential.
The Club was started after paediatric physiotherapist Pam Wilkie realised that young disabled children needed an outlet for physical activity, which they did not have. After creating the Upside Down Swimming Club in the early 1990s, Pam Wilkie and volunteer Barbara Mutlow worked to organize the Upside Down Sports Club, which attained charitable status in 1995.
The club ran weekly activities, outings to sporting events, and weekend activities such as scuba diving, fishing, and skiing. Declining participation and lack of personnel led to closure of the club in 1992. The Huntingdon Disability Sports Forum was founded after this for all children with special needs.
The trustees of UDSC sought to re-launch the Club specifcally for wheelchair-bound children; they organized a wheelchair training event in October of 2006 to seek to re-organize the club. The event was a success: groups met monthly after this event!
The club was officially 'launched' on Monday 11 February in the St. Ivo Indoor Sports Hall. The children were dressed in club T-shirts, and there were balloons and ribbons galore. The strong turnout attracted healthy interest from the local media, including coverage on Q103, the Hunts Post, Cambridge News, and even Anglia Television.
The Upside Down Sports Club has been going from strength to strength recently. Following a reforming of its committee, the Club decided to organise a launch event to raise its profile, attract new members and volunteers, and importantly, attract potential donations.
Contact details
UpsideDownSportsClub.co.uk