Bognor resident to run for South Coast Sports

A Bognor resident, Harry Annals, is fundraising for the charity he works for that coaches sports to the disabled community.

Harry is the second person from left to right.

He went to the University of Chichester and graduated in about 2017. He did a sports science degree and essentially picked a health route way, looking at working with people with cancer, diabetes rather than a sports performance focus.

"Based on that, I really enjoyed the coaching and teaching side of things. So I went into a local primary school as a teaching assistant and essentially my mornings were maths and English, which was the bit I wasn't as interested in!"

Harry's afternoons were dedicated towards sport interventions. He would work with children that teachers may have identified for him - it could be for behaviour control among other reasons.

I'd take them out of class to do something called a brain break. This would be along the lines of maybe 10 minutes playing football or maybe then bringing a friend out with them where they can interact and not feel the pressure of having 30 children in a football match during their PE lesson.

I'd also work with children who had certain disabilities. So I worked with a boy who had a brain injury and had balance issues. So with their physio plan that's been set by them. I do some balance exercises, getting them to stand on one leg, getting up and down off a chair, a bit of stair walking. And again, that would be a sort of weekly thing. And I'd also take sort of the football teams and other sports teams out to events.

From that he always really enjoyed working with children with special educational needs and now working for South Coast Sports as the community projects coordinator and essentially trying to reach out to the community a little bit more and try and reach out to families and people that maybe have a lot of barriers to participation.

I also work with some children on one-to-one interventions which is where I'm trying to get this funding for this event I'm doing. Essentially, I work with children, I work with a couple of children who've got cerebral palsy and they do one-to-one sessions with me. Also go back into schools where the schools will say, look, we've got three or four children here. There's slight issues with behaviour or friendship groups and maybe they don't interact well in PE and just be able to take part in sport in a safe environment but beyond that, grow life skills, confidence, resilience taking turns, all those little things that sport can really bring out. It's not just about being active with south coast sports we want to we really want to change behavior and attitude and lead to long term mental health puzzle well benefits of mental health and physical health.

How does it work, I hear you ask? South Coast Sport get some data through of schools that have a higher percentage of children with send children and set up a community interest company arm to the business, so that's where their community projects are all funded.

They also have to apply for funding and got some funding over in the summer last year, which basically said we can run weekly sessions in a school for two local primary schools in the autumn term and then two local primary schools in the spring term which is quickly coming up.

We enjoy working with the schools because what's great is we have a centralized location now as well where we do run sessions. But by having those children in an environment where they know so the children we're working with, they're at that school, they know the sports hall, they know where the shed is. They know the facilities. So, that's really why I'm doing this. I want as much as it's really competitive to get funding.

By trying to raise a bit of extra money, we're hoping then we can prolong these projects and again break down those barriers. We don't want families to be paying a lot of money because we know it's a difficult climate at the minute, you know, and we want to make it as accessible to those children and families as we can. And that's hopefully what will happen!

Harry is taking part in fundraising challenges alongside those funding applications. You're actually doing some yourself, and the first one is of the London Winter Walk.

It's been one of those things for years that I've been desperate to do and it's always… There's always been a reason why I haven't. I've been putting my own barriers up basically and it's just, I mean, I love my fitness. So more about me personally, I love running and walking and just plug in my headphones in. For me, that's kind of my release, you know, just putting a pair of trainers on, and if I can do something with that and help others, then great. But I think for me, it's always been a goal of mine to try and make a difference. And I think I'm really lucky because I'm in a position where I do it as work.

The walk starts at the Oval Cricket ground and there's a 10K on the day and there's a half marathon and then there's the full marathon.

To our knowledge there's about 4,000 people taking part over the weekend and Harry mentions that "t's just great to see everyone coming out in, you know, starting their New Year's off in the right footing."

SendActive is a new session off South Coast Sports in their central location, which is the Phoenix Centre, local to the Bognor community.

Because we know there's a lot of anxiety that can be caused if you're meeting a load of new children. So some of them, I've tried to do it where the children I've invited so far, they might already have a friend that can come with them.

Also South Coast Sport isn't just a sport based charity, as Harry explains;

Again, I almost try and say as much as South Coast sports sounds like a very sporty thing. Anything to get children more active. It doesn't have to be a sport. It could be mimicking a video game or it can be anything like that but it's also developing those life skills and again removing those barriers to participation. That's what we really want rather than any sports performance focus.

The company are also based in Horsham as well that does similar things which again we're trying to grow that community offering there. It's very much at Bognor at the minute but again, hopefully over the next few months the company hopes to be able to start some more over in Horsham.

South Coast Sport states that they have been providing outstanding active opportunities to the children and young people of West Sussex for 25 years and gave a statement regarding Harry's mission.

In 2023 we formed our Community Interest Company arm, South Coast Sports Coastal CIC. This has enabled us to apply for grants and funding to further increase our non-profit activities. Harry joined us as Community Projects Co-ordinator in Summer of 2024 as we moved into our local office at The Phoenix centre. His is a hybrid role of delivery and administration. We wanted to really focus on supporting those with barriers to participation in our local coastal community of Arun and its surrounding districts. Since Harry has joined us we have been able to achieve so much already in such a short time and his passion and enthusiasm are clear to see. 

Harry's fundraising efforts will support the continuation of 1-1 Active Intervention sessions for children and young people with SEND, aswell as small group sessions for those children with SEND who can cope in a group setting. We intend to run Community Pickleball sessions this Spring/Summer at The Phoenix centre & reach out to the SEND community to deliver sessions in local Colleges & Disability settings aswell with providing a Multiskills central venue session on Monday mornings at the Phoenix centre aswell as our ever popular Active Tots Football on Saturday mornings. 

If anyone's interested in the work they do at South Coast Sports in particular -

https://southcoastsports.org.uk/ and if you wish to donate; https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/harry-annals?utm_term=vXmBKz2YN.

Harry further stated that;

Check us out. And yeah, feel free to book any activities. We've just started a new booking system so yeah, get signed up on there if you're interested. And hopefully we'll see some of you around!

And it's not just to people with SEND disabilities, it's welcome for everyone!!

All photos are credited by South Coast Sport and Harry Annals.