Following the success of our first pool party in Greymouth, we ran a series of SPLASH! POOL PARTIES in Ōtautahi across February and March to make the most of the end of the warm weather.
Rangiora
Our first pool party was held up in North Canterbury in Rangiora at the Dudley Park Aquatic Centre on Friday 12th February from 5pm – 7pm. The pool party was for care-experienced children and young people of all ages, their caregivers and their whānau with about 30 people turning up to swim and connect with us. We had a mix of ages including babies, children and teens. We all gathered together outside the pool and chatted before heading inside to swim and play some games including volleyball! Tayla and Josh got in the pool while Dietrich and Kat were outside on the BBQ. Around an hour in we all went outside to get some kai and drinks and mingle.
This was when we got the time to chat with caregivers and young people we hadn’t met before and managed to get details to send out Welcome to VOYCE packs! Overall a super successful event which resulted in some follow up visits with attendees and a few that were keen to come along to our pool party in Christchurch two weeks later.
Christchurch
On Friday 26th February we held our next Splash! Pool Party at Jellie Park Recreation and Sports Centre from 5pm – 7pm and around 30 people attended. This was a family friendly event, and it was awesome to have a range of ages attend from two years old all the way to twenty years old. We set up in the BBQ area and booked everyone onto the hydro slides which was an absolute blast. Our group went on all the slides, played in the indoor and outdoor pools, enjoyed the spa, nailed the diving boards and the team at Jellie Park even got out all of the inflatables for us.
At the end we all came together to enjoy a sausage sizzle and ran some evaluation activities to ask young people what other events they would like to see from us.
Waltham
Our last pool party of the season was at Waltham Summer Pool on Sunday 28th March (their last day open for the season!) This was a collaborative event with YCD with over 40 young people attending. This was an epic day because it was super-hot and a perfect day for an outdoor swim! We had the music pumping and live performances and of course the staple free sausage sizzle. This was an awesome way to wrap up the pool party season and we can’t wait to run them again next Summer.
These pool parties were able to happen thanks to the Tū Manawa fund from Sport Canterbury. A highlight for VOYCE was getting to meet and connect with so many new young people and we managed to get loads of awesome ideas from you about future events.
