Come and join us on a play filled fortnight where we will be parading around the Geopark, treasure hunting in Brixham, playing in the woods, exploring under the sea, moving and playing with Jabadao,  animating with the internally renowned Forkbeard Fantasy and completing a secret mission in Brixham!

AND… Fort Apache, Indigos with BFG (Brixham Family Group) and Wild Fox with FUN (Foxhole Unique Neighbourhood) are all celebrating the Queens Jubilee by throwing a party!

Here is the programme, all these activities are FREE and everyone is welcome! (although some do have limited spaces) So do BOOK early!

The Torbay Sports Holiday Programme through Paignton Community and Sports College can also be downloaded by clicking the link. Play Torbay also offers The Adventure Play in the Bay Inclusion Programme which provides free inclusion support for disabled young people to access adventures of their choosing throughout the holidays.

For more information please contact Jemma Collins,  07920 108 095 or email Jemma@playtorbay.org.uk. Play Torbay will try to facilitate transport for trips if needed, please ask.

Please let us know if you or members of your group have any specific requirements or if there are any barriers to attending. We will do our level best to organise an activity around your needs if we’ve got plenty of notice.

VERY IMPORTANT: Before making your bookings, please ensure that you have read our Adventure Play In the Bay Terms and Conditions

To celebrate the arrival of the 2012 Olympic Torch in Torbay next 20^th May, Torbay Council’s Residents and Visitors Services have sought PLAY TORBAY’s participation in the Giant Olympic Torch Event.

Amongst the many activities around Torre Abbey and the seafront, PLAY TORBAY, in conjunction with the DEVON MUSIC COLLECTIVE, will have a stage on Corbyn Head where ‘WIRED EARTH’ will be performed by children and young people coming from our playgrounds in Torquay (Fort Apache), Paignton (Wild Fox) and Brixham (Indigos Go Wild).

Wired Earth is a project initiated by the two organisations at the beginning of the year to gauge how Play and Music interact together and can bounce of each other. Since then, children and young people have been enthusiastically immersed in doing just that: playing, singing, dancing, enjoying music and creating a performance for all to enjoy.

The youngsters will be arriving in touring-style buses with their music gear, ‘riders’ (ie packed lunches kindly sponsored by Sainsbury’s Torquay) and entourage (including roadies!) and perform to music and dance they created and have been rehearsing for months. It will be their first performance and the excitement is brewing!

It is going to be lively, energetic and entertaining: people who come to see us can expect the unexpected!

There will be music, dance and fun from 3pm to 4pm at Corbyn Head – a not-to-be-missed event!

Play Torbay, winners of the Playwork Local Development Team Award at the National Playwork Conference 2012, held its first AGM on Monday 26^th March at Oldway Mansion in Paignton.

In a packed Ballroom steaming with enthusiastic children and adults, Play Torbay was presented with a Reaching Communities cheque for £335,116 by Olivia Gore from the Big Lottery Southwest and a cheque for £2,000 From Kiri Bigwood from Sainsbury’s Torquay. Kiri Bigwood also hosted the evening magnificently.

Karen Benjamin (University of Gloucestershire), Jane Hembrow and Steve Chown (Play England) highlighted the benefits of Outdoor Play with engaging interactive activities with the audience.

The children and young people of Fort Apache (Hele) and Indigos Go Wild  (Summercombe) adventure playgrounds, who generously gave their time to be present at the meeting, held the audience in their hands as they told their own stories, passionate about the opportunities that they have to play freely outdoors.

While the youngsters then went for an adventurous night walk in Oldway’s grounds, the AGM took place. Gay Hickling and Tanny Stobart lead proceedings and a new board of Trustees was elected, comprising existing members Gay Hickling, Julie McFie Jones, Tanny Stobart, Jo Gale and Carole Morey; and new members Di Murray – writer, inclusive play, play trainer; Barry Cole – outgoing Managing Director, Riviera International Centre; Sarah Ready – Citizens Advice Bureau, Brixham and friend of Indigos Go Wild Adventure Playground; Sue Varlow – Torbay Care Trust Finance Officer, church youth worker and friend of Fort Apache; Lyndsey Hampson – Manager of Play Cafe, Torquay and Cindy Stocks – Councillor Torbay Council, Ellacombe.

This year Play Torbay has also been awarded the prestigious Olympic Games Inspire Mark for GO ADVENTURES 2012 an innovative and exceptional project which will be held during the first week of the summer school holidays.

Gay Hickling, the Chair said, “A fantastic evening - a huge amount of work had gone into it. Everything was really superb. And it was a great turn out – a fabulous show case for Play Torbay.”

Come and join us on a play filled fortnight where we will be travelling to East Dartmoor, playing in the woods, exploring the beaches in Paignton and climbing, sliding and spinning at the Play Cafe. We have also teamed up with BFG (Brixham Family Group) to put on a fantastic Easter Party. Here is the programme, all these activities are FREE and everyone is welcome! (although some do have limited spaces) So do BOOK early!

The Torbay Sports holiday programme through Paignton Community and Sports College can also be downloaded by clicking the link.

Play Torbay also offers The Adventure Play in the Bay Inclusion Programme which provides free inclusion support for disabled young  people to access adventures of their choosing throughout the holidays.

For more information please contact Jemma Collins.
M: 07920 108 095 or Email: Jemma@playtorbay.org.uk.

Play Torbay will try to facilitate transport for trips if needed, please ask. Please let us know if you or members of your group have any specific requirements or if there are any barriers to attending. We will do our level best to organise an activity around your needs if we’ve got plenty of notice.

VERY IMPORTANT: Before making your bookings, please ensure that you have read our Adventure Play In the Bay Terms and Conditons

We held an Asset Based Community Development 2 Day Workshop on January 23^rd & 24^th 2012 called Dare to Dream.

The focus of the workshop revolved around the following BIG question: 

What can we do more of to support people (especially those who are on the margins of society) to experience a genuine sense of belonging, and to actively contribute to their communities of place?

A very big thank you to everyone who came along – over 140 people what a wonderful turn out.  We are getting some really exciting feedback about the event and ten people have already said that their experience over the two days has been life changing – quite remarkable.

We are currently gathering all of the work from the event and will produce a mind map of key messages which will be circulated shortly.  We will also be producing a brief outcomes and next steps document which will include recommendations in response to the commitments pledged by Torbay Council.

Our intention is to ‘KEEPCONNECTED’.  So many of you have contacted us since expressing a genuine desire to connect our learning into meaningful, transformative action, collaboratively.  As an interim solution, we suggest a gathering of ‘Dare to Dream Conference Connectors’ to meet and consider how we can immediately continue to explore small opportunities for change – to Think Big and Act Small, to begin with.

The invitation is to come along to a get together for an hour on Monday 20th February, 4pm at The Edge, Brixham to explore community building.

And this is the statement from Nick Hurd about our ‘dare to dream’ ABCD development in Torbay:

“The Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach draws upon existing community strengths to build stronger, more sustainable communities for the future.  Underpinning the principle of community organising, it’s about giving power back to the people to support them to make their communities better places to live.  I hope you enjoyed the Dare to Dream 2012 event and came away feeling inspired into action”.  Nick Hurd MP, Minister for Civil Society.

If you are interested in having a stall, these cost £5 each and need to be pre-booked by calling Tracey Underhill or Kiri Bigwood on (01803) 614689.

Sainsbury’s will very kindly donate the money raised with the stall fee to Play Torbay!

Homemade cakes and refreshments available.

Do come along to sell or buy and have some fun!

We are looking for 25 heroes age 8-12 in each community to take part in an extraordinary adventure where the world of play combines with the owrld of music to bring your sound to Torbay.

Saturday 11th February 10am-2pm: the Windmill Centre in Hele, Torquay;

Thursday 16th February 12 noon at Indigos Go Wild Adventure Playground, Brixham. Finishes 4pm at The Edge in Brixham;

Saturday 18th February 10am-2pm: The Foxhole Community Centre in Foxhole, Paignton.

Play Torbay are proud to be working in partnership with the Devon Music Collective to bring the Wired Earth Quest to life!

Please click here for more information – if you want to take part, please contact: jemma@playtorbay.org.uk

As a result there were a number of jobs available, these included:

2 x Community Play Development Workers
1 x Play Inclusion officier
3 x Play Inclusion workers
9 x Play worker posts.

Thank you to everyone who applied and congratulations to the successful candidates who will be taking over their new positions during the month of February 2012!

PLAYTORBAY is to receive more than £300,000 from the Big Lottery to support and develop three state of the art adventure play areas called THREE BAY VENTURES.

Based in Hele in Torquay, Blatchcombe in Paignton and Summercombe in Brixham, the play areas will be free to local families and will encourage greater participation in community-based recreation.

The new facilities will build on the developments at Fort Apache, Wild Fox and Indigos Go Wild adventure playgrounds where children and families are already involved.

Tanny Stobart, Chair of Play Torbay, said: “The Big Lottery has awarded us a total of £335,116 over three years for the play areas planned in our 3 Bay Ventures project. It’s fantastic news.

It will make such a difference and help to create greater community cohesion with families and local people.  There will be lots of opportunities for children, parents and community members to take part and get fully involved in the running of provision and community-led activities. Organisations who work with children from across the Bay, especially those who are disabled, will be supported to make use of these magical spaces too.

We are seeking to demonstrate the benefits of community involvement in the management and maintenance of local play spaces.

We believe communities can bring play spaces to life and, through their contribution, can become hubs for wider community activity.

Communities can take a lead in developing and managing the places where children play, and local people can be a catalyst for positive change.

The project will support local people to access a variety of training and outdoor skills including design and build, bushcraft, risk benefit assessment, first aid, questing and outdoor games.  It will also encourage volunteers to become qualified playworkers.”

Cllr Chris Lewis, Executive Lead for Children, Schools and Families, said: “Congratulations to Play Torbay on winning this marvellous funding from the Big Lottery. Children’s play spaces are part of the fabric of community life. Providing the best places possible for children to be able to play together will always be a priority for communities themselves because they know that children playing are happier, healthier and more resilient than children who are not.

“Over the last two years feedback and growing involvement from local parents and children in the three communities in Torbay is encouraging and this announcement will be important news for them.”

For further information please contact: Tanny Stobart on 07725 860407 or email tanny@playtorbay.org.uk

Tanny Stobart

Foxhole Playday was very special because it was our first play session on a scrap of land that has been ‘gifted’ by the school and  ‘liberated’ by local people in the WILD FOX Community Development Project who are turning it into an adventure playground for their children. Local people had strimmed the land, local children had litter picked to clear the rubbish and local people young and older came together and played on the land.

Over the summer SKY Television came and built the most fantastic tree house with the Foxhole Community at WILD FOX as part of their GREAT TREE HOUSE CHALLENGE which will be shown after the Simpsons in November!! Everyone is very excited – there’s been a lot of talk about ‘what the children want’ for many years and now because of a very dynamic group of people – young and old – ACTION is the name of the game and FOXHOLE is getting some, As one lovely besuited man from Torbay’s Natural Environment Services said “It’s Foxholes turn!”

WILD FOX will grow into an adventure playground that will be free to ALL local children for, we hope, many years to come and this was our first play so Playday for us marks the beginning of WILD FOX Adventure Play (or Community Development Project when we’re writing funding bids!)