Profiling the nominees for the Sport category.
Sponsored by Sport Wales.
Our Sport category recognises outstanding achievements by an individual who has inspired others to achieve within sporting fields within their local communities, region or throughout Wales.
You can watch the video of the shortlisted nominees in the Sport category below:
The shortlisted nominees are:
Sarah Draper, Merthyr Running Club
Draper started running 8 years ago after she had her second son, she won a place in the London Marathon – got fit, lost weight and made her family proud. After searching continually for a local running club she decided to start her own, which later merged with another small group to become Merthyr Running Club. Sarah coached at each session, organized the coach rota, applied to be Welsh Athletics affiliated, before putting a committee together and now has 10 qualified coaches. Drapers works full time running the family business, cares for two children and volunteers a lot of time to the club and has watched it flourish greatly over the years.
Fiona Reid, insport, Disability Wales
Led by Fiona Reid and the team, insport is a project which consists of 3 different programmes, each of which is supported through a 3 year funded cycle by the St James’ Place Foundation. The intention of insport is to support the delivery of inclusive opportunity throughout the sport and leisure network for all disabled people.
Insport works to enable all sport and leisure agencies, organisations and individuals within them, to consider disabled people as part of their audience and membership from the start and throughout their provision; thereby delivering inclusive opportunity. It is a toolkit to achieve inclusive aims which are arranged under 4 Standards of achievement (Ribbon, Bronze, Silver and Gold), with the intention of supporting and embedding understanding, knowledge and skills regarding the inclusion of disabled people within the physical activity, sport and leisure sectors.
James Pontin, Valleys Golf Enterprise
James Pontin and his team developed Valleys Golf Enterprise a not-for-profit social enterprise which delivers coaching, education and training with the objective of unlocking and realizing the full potential of the communities in which we work through golf. They have established golf academies throughout South Wales, with the main focus on group coaching in the following sectors: Pre-school ‘Skratch’ programmes for children aged between 2-5; Junior boys and girls aged between 4-7, 7-11 and 11-14; Advanced boys and girls; Ladies; Disabled; Adult beginner and Inter Club groups.
VGE also delivers free coaching to primary and secondary Schools in the local authorities of Rhondda Cynon Taff, Caerphilly, Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent.
The social enterprise has obtained the endorsement and backing of Ian Woosnam OBE, Wales’s most successful golfer, who has personally invested in the company and together we aim to use his experience as a former World No.1, Masters winner and Ryder Cup captain to create a pathway for aspiring Welsh golfers to reach the very highest levels.
