Princess Anne has taken part in an introductory session of our Love to Move programme at UK Coaching’s Applied Coaching Research Conference in Derby.
Held at Derby County Football Club, this year’s conference was based on the theme, ‘Shape the Future of Coaching’, and engaged with over 150 coaching practitioners from a number of sports.
The day consisted of a range of talks and sessions from experienced coaching practitioners who spoke about their coaching research and practice, enabling attendees to learn, share and collaborate on ideas.
Patrick Bonner, Head of the British Gymnastics Foundation, was one of the speakers on the day and delivered a session on the Love to Move programme, our seated gymnastics programme which is transforming the lives of people living with dementia. He was later joined by HRH the Princess Royal who sat in and took part in the activities part of the session.
“HRH The Princess Royal participated in many of the exercises as part of the session and embraced the fun side of Love to Move,” said Patrick. “It was a great privilege and pleasure to have her engage in our session and we had a very interesting discussion about the programme, its application in benefitting the public; and the work we’re doing, more of which we are looking forward to actioning in the coming months.”
The Love to Move programme returns this year and is currently running and testing pilot education courses with selected organisations before a public launch later this year.
A recent pilot course took place in Cookstown with Sport Northern Ireland, the leading public body for the development of sport in Northern Ireland, who are helping to fund the delivery of the programme. Representatives from Disability Sport Northern Ireland and a number of Northern Ireland councils and other community organisations came together to learn about the delivery of the programme through a series of practical and theory sessions on the two-day pilot course.
Patrick added: “Working with Sport Northern Ireland is helping us increase the reach of the programme by developing more learners for the programme. We hope with this expanded network of learners we can make a real impact to the lives of older people across areas of Northern Ireland.”
Find out more information about Love to Move and download our free exercise booklet.
If you are interested in supporting the delivery of the Love to Move programme, please email [email protected].