Adventure Play in the Bay

Adventure Play in the Bay enables children to access adventurous activities that they would not normally be able to take part in due to lack of transport, insufficient funds, lack of an inclusive play environment, individual or additional needs.

Play Torbay is awarded funding from Children in Need and we have produced a report to say how we have spent the money. PLAYTORBAY aims to provide a positive adventure play experience for everyone involved – children, young people, volunteers, adults, instructors and staff. In partnership with Torbay Council who currently provides the funding for the coordination of this work, we buy into Paignton Community and Sports College award winning sports programme each holiday.

In addition to these opportunities PLAYTORBAY also provides a range of different activities, like Doorstep Adventures, Combo days and Epic Adventures. We also try to ensure that young people who are interested in a particular activity have the opportunity to pursue it and be accredited for their efforts.

This year Adventure Play in the Bay has touched the lives of over 2200 children of which more than 2150 were in need of support.  For more information please click here

The costs of the activities and the transport are raised by the charity. This year we are funded by Children in Need, Torbay Council, Awards for All and the Co-op. The project is supported locally in all sorts of ways. People have come bag packing with us, the Junior Street Wardens and FUNK did a sponsored Tree Top Adventures, Community Partnerships from all over the bay have dug deep, the Youth Service and Early Years Play and Childcare have helped with free activities and by staffing the events. Other sponsors include: Targeted Youth Support, Brixham Parish Council, Short Breaks Participate Funding, Recycle Torbay, the Soroptimists, Crime Beat, Westcountry Housing and even a group of councillors who personally contributed toward the Victorian Beach Adventure at Goodrington.

Torbay Play has also received support in kind from Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust, the IBEX Canoe Club, Grenville House, Torre Abbey, The Brixham Bezerkers, Torquay Museum, Hi Flyer, Torbay’s Residents and Visitors Services, Torbay’s Safer Communities.

The programme is different each year with upwards of 2,000 activities on offer free of charge for children and young people both during the holidays and at the weekends. If you would like to read more about Adventure Play in the Bay a report is produced each year 2008, 2009 and 2010.

There are a number of sub-strands of Adventure Play in the Bay including:

Doorstep Adventures

A ‘Doorstep Adventure’ is an exciting and challenging activity close to where you live facilitated by an experienced provider. Play Torbay takes Doorstep Adventures into the heart of some of the most disadvantaged communities in Torbay – parks, after school clubs, holiday clubs, adventure play areas, community run youth groups, local leisure and community centres. We provide exciting and memorable sessions for young people in their leisure time; and bring them on to the doorstep of local communities in Torbay. The aim is to empower children to choose their own adventures and support young people and playworkers to learn new skills by direct involvement. We are currently recruiting for the next Doorstep Adventures so hurry to get in touch.

Doorstep Adventures bring adventurous and playful activitues to communities’ doorsteps not onlu to provide free activities locally for young people but also to reach families who may not know about the Adventure Play in the Bay project.
In 2010/2011 Play Torbay has used Doorstep Adventures to add to local community events like:

• The ‘Christmas Jamboree’ at Chestnut Community Centre in Brixham
• The opening of Foxhole Community Centre in Paignton
• The opening of a new playground in Young’s Park in Paignton

Activites have previously included; Archery and an inflatable assault course and recycled creative play. On the day of the Royal Wedding children and parents made over 150 baton twirlers out of unused hospital paraphernalia and florist ribbon – they were easy to make and the joy was immediate as the children raced across the park with red, white and blue ribbon streaming behind them.

Feedback from parents and carers:

• ‘Lots of happy children, sharing arts and crafts, archery, den building and gardening’
• ‘Food!’
• ‘I enjoyed every single moment – Ayesha xxx’
• ‘I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for the wonderful ADVENTURE that you gave all of our young people on Saturday.
• As I am sure you are aware, we are always looking for new and exciting things to do at the Paignton Kool Club and Saturday’s Playpod Party did just that! The use of the adventure playground was also great fun. All of our young people found something fun to do. Whether it was making wands, helping make tree protectors, rescuing frog spawn (!), building with car tyres or just runing around brandishing a sword and shield! What fun! It was a treat to let everyone wader off and do their own thing, these days it is hard to find somewhere to go that allows us such freedom. So, all credit to you and your team on the day for giving us a fun afternoon (and that includes the session workewrs as well as the young people!)’
  - Tim Chapman, Session Leader Paignton Kool Club.

This year Play Torbay has delivered a total of 8 Doorstep Adventures for children and young people.

The latest one is a Doorstep Adventure at Greenway – Play Torbay has invited Moorvision families to a ‘Creative Whodunnit?’ at Greenway – Agatha Christie’s summer holiday home. Activities on offer in the walled garden include:

• Sensory sculpting using sand and clay
• Felt making
• Music making

In the Greenway gounds includes a ‘Whodunnit?’ sensory investigation of Agatha Christie’s garden.

If you would like Play Torbay to work with your group to design a bespoke adventure on your doorstep, please get in touch with us. Tel: 01803 850157 email: jemma@playtorbay.org.uk

Combo Adventures

These are all day events, specially designed to extend range with a combination of activities e.g. kayaking, cooking, sculpting, drumming and beach games. This year there was a scary combo day specially designed for our most intrepid young people who had to abseil from cliffs at Meadfoot Bay and then visit Kent’s Cavern Ghost walk where it was reported they were all very scared!

Epic Adventures

These are even more ambitious events for larger numbers of children developed together with young people and local organisations – for example Little Terras on the Beach – where Play Torbay worked with Torre Abbey and Resident and Visitor services to celebrate the arrival of Antony Gormley’s Field for the British Isles exhibition at Torre Abbey. This was to create a ‘field of sand sculptures’ on Abbey Sands – famous for its ‘sculptable sand’ – children, young people, parents and carers were invited to come together and race the tide to create the biggest sand sculpture Abbey Sands has ever seen. Everyone was able to come and make one little Terra or stay and make hundreds. Every person who made a Terra was entered into a prize draw for a ticket to go up in Torbay’s Hi Flyer balloon from where you can see both Torre Abbey and Abbey Sands from up on high and there is a film on Youtube to mark the event. And of course everyone who made a little terra was invited to go and see the real ones in the Barn at Torre Abbey!

Canterers

During an evaluation session in the autumn of 2008 one young person said “I want to canter free in the fields.” One of the biggest problems facing the charity is the lack of repeat funding available for individual young people – taking a rider from beginner to Canterer is quite an investment – but that’s just what happened. With the support of Targeted Youth Support, SRS Stables and White Horse Trekking Centre during 2009, 10 young people came together to learn how to ride and take care of horses – between them they achieved a massive 30 accredited outcomes during the process and they enjoyed themselves so much they put in a TOFFY bid to go on a Pony Trek camp to reach their final goal – they got their money and they did their camp – all 10 young people started their story as children in need – they ended 2009 as The Canterers.

Adventure Play

A more recent development is to support local play areas offering open access play to further develop the provision in the local community to make it more inclusive. There are currently two groups – Indigos in Brixham and Fort Apache in Hele, Torquay.

Play Torbay is currently supporting both Fort Apache in Torquay and Indigos in Brixham with the help of Children in Need funding.  Play Torbay aim to have an adventure playground built by communities in each town in the Bay open for as many sessions as possible and we will be looking for interest in Paignton in the New Year.