Olympics inspires sheltered housing tenants

Published by Craig Downs for Derwentside Homes Ltd in Housing and also in Communities

The success of Team GB and Paralympic GB this summer inspired groups of tenants from sheltered housing courts across County Durham to hold their own mini Olympics tournament.

Derwentside Homes organised the tournament earlier this month to bring tenants living in its sheltered housing schemes together and compete in a number of games.

Tenants participated in events such as quoits, dominoes, carpet bowls, darts and a team quiz, which was held at the South Stanley Community Centre in Stanley, County Durham. 

Staff from Derwentside Homes helped to organise the event and arranged for prizes and medals for the winners of each competition.  A trophy was also presented to the best team with the most amount points at the end of the day.

Tenants from Magdalene Court in Medomsley, Consett only intended to watch the event but ended up entering a team and winning the best team prize.

Mrs Val Hudson from Magdalene Court, said: “Myself and three other tenants from the court only went along to support the event but tenants from other schemes encouraged us to enter a team and I couldn’t believe it when we won the best team prize.

“We have only known each other for a year and have not even practiced but we won gold in the quoits competition, silver in carpet bowls and bronze in the darts.

“It was all down to a lot of luck on the day and we had a really nice day.  It was a great opportunity to meet tenants from the other schemes and we were all very well looked after.  The trophy is sitting proudly within the lounge of our scheme and it has encouraged other tenants living at the scheme to participate next year.”

Angela Hodgson, Older Persons Services Manager from Derwentside Homes, said: “It was a lovely event for all of our tenants to get active and get involved in and they thoroughly enjoyed it.  I would like to say a special thank you to Bill Hope, one of our tenants from Towneley Court in Stanley who through his commitment to the tenants living at the Court, he encouraged many other tenants to get active and helped us to organise the event.  Bill was so proud that his team won gold medal in the darts competition.” 

Shelagh McGinn, Head of Housing Services at Derwentside Homes, said: “Following the success of the Olympics throughout the summer, we thought it would be a good idea to organise a mini tournament for all of our sheltered housing tenants to participate in and enjoy.

“Everyone had a great day and it was lovely to see tenants from different courts come together and meet each other.  They all did very well and the feedback was so positive that we will now make this an annual event.”

A total of seven sheltered housing courts participated on the day.