Previous Community Projects
Below are a few highlights of our past projects, showcasing the delivery and impact made.
Staying Active, Staying Connected
Staying Active, Staying Connected Bucks (SASC) aimed to help older adults become more active by connecting them to existing programs and spaces in their community. Through our SASC project, we successfully identified, mapped, and promoted over 200 local older adult physical activity opportunities, alongside over 50 social opportunities for this demographic. We surveyed 158 older adults to better understand the barriers they face in participating in physical activity and their awareness of existing programs. The rollout project as a result of our findings can be found here.
Bike ReCycles
Bike Recycles is a sustainability-driven initiative with the aim of providing accessible and eco-friendly transportation. The project focused on collecting, upcycling and redistributing bicycles to individuals within HP17, HP19, HP20 and HP21 postcodes in Aylesbury. Through the forming of partnerships with local organisations, Otec bikes and volunteers, Bike ReCycles were able to successfully restore and distribute 200 bikes.Â
We hope to expand this project to the rest of the Buckinghamshire County in due course.
Physical Activity by Stealth
Aimed at engaging inactive residents in areas of deprivation to improve their physical activity levels through ‘stealth approaches’, this provision included a main activity that is not associated with being physically active, but participants become regularly active as a key by-product of taking part.
Example of activities;Â Woodland photography walks, nerf games, quidditch, LARPing and dog agility sessions.
HAF Camps
This project provides free holiday activities and a healthy hot meal for children in Reception to Year 11 who receive benefits-related free school meals.
AITC have successfully delivered HAF in Easter, Summer and Christmas 2021, Summer and Christmas 2022 in addition to Easter and Christmas 2023.
GO TRY Events
An initiative created by British Triathlon following the 2012 London Olympics, GO TRI offers participants of all abilities the chance to train and race in a safe environment with other like minded people at accessible and affordable distances and prices.
AITC have delivered GO TRI events since 2016, across both Hertfordshire & Buckinghamshire.
The Active Bucks Men and BAME
This project aimed to engage and retain inactive and fairly-active Buckinghamshire residents from two groups that have been under-represented in the Active Bucks programme to date; males aged 18-64 and Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic Communities (BAME).
Example of the sessions we ran included: Bollywood Dance, Men’s Yoga, Men’s Fitness, Father & Child specific activities (Badminton and Squash).
Various Children & Young People sessions
Launched to try and combat high levels of childhood obesity as well as improve participant social well-being, confidence and mental well-being, 30 new community physical activity sessions were launched for 5-16 year olds.
Programs included: Skateboarding, Netball, Dance, Tennis, Handball, Badminton, Fight Klub, Rabble and Futsal.
Festivals
Working alongside a partnering organisation, AITC have organised multiple ‘festivals’ in local parks to provide awareness on certain sports, health and wellbeing topics/opportunities.
For example, in 2023, Hertford Cycling Festival saw over 500 local residents in attendance. A variety of stalls and activities, such as facepainting, BMX show and coffe lab were in place to encourage non cyclists to attend.
