Father & Son
Since I posted my last blog the Stephen Harrison Academy (SHA) has really taken off. With many snooker clubs now running at a loss due to a variety of pressures, including the smoking ban, we’ve found a new direction that seems to be working really well and greatly benefiting the community around us.
At this moment in time as well as teaching, I’m having meetings with the Sheffield City Council and I’ve had a meeting with a company called SNIPS (Social Need Inclusion Play Schemes), so we’re going to be signing a big SLA contract with social services. I’ve also had a meeting with Connexions and they’ve given their backing to what we’re doing. They’ve got a pdf of our brochure and they’re sending it out it to all the people they know, which is great because they’ve got thousands on their mailing lists.
At the moment we have groups in Monday to Friday. In addition social services have asked if I can run Saturdays and Sundays as well, so we’re pretty busy. We have fathers and sons tournaments on Sundays, where ‘Saturday dads’ who get limited time with their children bring them along for a game of snooker and socialise with the other fathers and sons. We’ve had lots of testimonies from people thanking us who are getting a lot from it.
We’re really motoring ahead now and I’ve got a meeting coming up where we’re going to look at employing more staff! Our short-term aims are to add to our staff and make the Sheffield club accessible to people with disabilities. Our long-term aim is to open new clubs around the UK. At the moment we’ve been travelling around Rotherham and Doncaster. I’ve also been meeting the schools in Sheffield.
We’ve found that when we open again as a club at 6pm the customers who have been coming for the last six years are still coming in. Some are even coming in a bit earlier and volunteering. So it’s really good for the community. We’ve had massive thanks from Clive Betts MP, Richard Caborn MP and especially ex-Lord Mayor Arthur Dunworth - he’s really behind us.
The way things are moving now I don’t think it’s going to be that long before we’re up and down the UK!
