By Tessa Cho/Red Sports
Chloe Ong, 9, tries out the game of pool basketball at the Sengkang SRC open house. (Photo 1 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
The Singapore Sports Council (SSC) will be holding an open house at the Pasir Ris Sports and Recreation Centre (SRC) on Saturday, November 10, from 10am to 6pm.
It is one in a series of open houses that the agency is holding to gather feedback from the public about the programmes it wishes to see when the Super Sports Club rolls out in 2014. The Super Sports Club is one of the recommendations of the Vision 2030 steering committee.
At the last open house held at the Sengkang SRC on Saturday, October 26, a weekly swimming lesson at the SRC turned into an even more fun day for Chloe Ong, 9.
Chloe got the chance to join in with other kids to play pool basketball, one of many activities for the public to try out for free.
“I found it fun and I like basketball, especially scoring,” said Chloe. “Playing basketball in the pool was also something new to me as I have never tried it before.”
In charge of the kids programme for the day was SRC staff member, Ms Khatijah Bee binte Shaik Shamshudin. She planned and arranged all the day’s activities for the kids, which were pool basketball, sniper range, water hoops, race & relay as well as flippa ball, a down-scaled version of water polo designed specially for kids. With regard to the kids programme, Ms Khatijah said, “I enjoyed coming up with the ideas.”
“Why we have such activities for the kids was out of care for the children – to let them discover their interest in it and have fun,” she added.
Family members were also encouraged to join in the games with the kids. Mr James Ong, the father of Chloe, said, “I think it’s good (that they have such programmes like pool basketball). It gets people together and let them mingle with one another. Games like basketball needs a lot of people. So if you’re by yourself, like my daughter, it’s very hard to play a game. You can mostly only do shooting. So, for something like this that is organised, it’s easier to get people together.”
Away from the pool, members of the public could watch a showcase of rhythmic gymnastics. Those who were interested were also able to try out the various apparatus available.
The gymnasts were also holding a practise in public to allow the public to observe the sport up close.
“It’s really special today that we open to the public so that they can see what’s going on and how they train everyday,” said Sara Obaldi of the Singapore Gymnastics, who is also an artistic gymnast herself. “It’s really quite demanding. The first part of the rehearsal is always flexibility and strength and so on. Then the second part is the routines they do for competition.”
“But [having the barricades down] is also really good for them as they learn to improve in their expression,” Sara added.
The gymnasts under the high performance programme are selected at a tender age of 6.
The Pasir Ris SRC open house will also see another whole series of sports and fitness activities for the public to try out.
For those interested in fitness, you can try out cardiobox, bodysculpt and step aerobics.
The main foyer will host tryouts for ultimate frisbee, inline skating and table tennis while for those interested in trying out badminton, basketball, floorball and tennis, they can head to the Sports Hall.
For more details, go to the SRC’s Facebook page.
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