Minty's Bsporty Sailor of the Year 2022
Minty's Bsporty Sailor of the Year 2022 - Reflections on our Sixth Month Mentoring Programme
Sailing, for obvious reasons, is often one of the trickier sports here at the Mintridge Foundation to deliver in schools. With this in mind, the remote element to our mentoring programmes comes into its own.
You might remember, towards the end of 2021, we announced our Minty’s Bsporty Sailors of the Year following some magnificent entries in our competition. Thank you to Bsporty, an online monthly sports magazine for boys and girls aged 7 – 14 that covers a range of different sports.
We wanted to hear about young people who have demonstrated World Sailing values throughout the past year and we were delighted to have many FANTASTIC entries showcasing how the nominees have been proactive, and collaborative as well as showing integrity, team spirit, resilience, ambition, resourcefulness and flexibility and we were delighted to announce that James and Eliza were announced as our winners to receive six months of remote mentoring in a safeguarded environment with professional sailor, Hannah Diamond. Learning from Hannah, who while the programme has been going on has been sailing with the likes of the Duchess of Cambridge as well as travelling to cities like San Francisco with the Great Britain SailGP Team. We hope that having this special opportunity will leave a lasting legacy for these individuals and their sailing journey.
Image taken from BBC News
James, from Ipswich Prep School and a member of Waldringfield Sailing Club had recently returned home with trophies from the Cadet National Championships and the judges were excited by James’s aspirations for the future and proactive nature.
With Eliza, from Portreath Community Primary School and Restronguet Sailing Club, it was her resilience that shone through to the judges who also loved hearing about her successes and her integrity surrounding rules and infringements. Now sailing at national level, we are excited for the next chapter.
Each fortnight, Hannah joined our winners on a safeguarded call to help nurture her mentees’ physical and mental fitness and we have loved seeing the developments throughout the programme.
Goal setting (and why we do it), combatting nerves as well as controlling the controllables were just some of the topics of discussion throughout the programme. As psychologists such as Carol Dweck often emphasise in their research, growth mindset is what enables top athletes to reach the pinnacle of their career and therefore for Hannah to be working on this with her mentees at an earlier age than many, will help in their sailing, their school work and other sports as well. This applied learning has multiple benefits. You can explore lots of these concepts in our Active Challenges below!
“Practice, practice, practice” enables us to see progress and Hannah ensured that there was reflection of this key point as the mentoring journey progressed, particularly as the mentees relaxed into the programme more as they got to know their Mintridge Mentor more and more technical elements of sailing could be brought in.
Hannah has a wonderful nature with her mentees that enabled them to see that they would soon get better at skill without giving it their full attention; there might be ups and downs with success but we must always look at the positives as the key message it to always build experience. Doing our best is all that we can do – keep learning and the results will come! Reflection is key. We were delighted to hear that mentees were making notes after each call and preparing for questions and discussions for the next ones! Fantastic preparation!
One of our key objectives here at Team Mintridge is to help children see what they can be and the possibilities really are endless. We were therefore DELIGHTED that the mentoring was able to conclude with one of our mentees meeting Hannah in person at SailGP – sport has the power to change the world!
We could write pages and pages about the impact that Hannah Diamond has had on these two young sailors but all that we will say is that we are excited to follow their journey now that the mentoring has drawn to a close. Thank you very much to the wonderful team at Bsporty for supporting our small but mighty charity and making this happen!
The Mintridge Foundation is a registered charity dedicated to enhancing life skills in young people through sport. We provide a support network for young people by harnessing the power of positive sporting role models. The Mintridge Foundation assists young people of all ages, abilities and physical capabilities to develop confidence and resilience, and creates awareness of the importance of mental and physical wellbeing through sport.
Our team of Ambassadors - Olympians, Paralympians and other professional sports stars from over 20 sports, both team and individual - work with young people in schools, clubs and academies across the UK. Starting with visits including assemblies, coaching clinics and classroom sessions tailored to each organisation’s requirements, our ambassadors can then provide one- on- one remote mentoring in a safeguarded environment, delivered via technology such as Fitswarm and Playwaze to build a lasting legacy for individuals.
The Mintridge Foundation’s successes demonstrate the incredible power of sport; from a mentee’s selection to represent Great Britain in their chosen field to enabling disabled children to find confidence and happiness just through participation. Understanding life after sport, we also support our Ambassadors in their transition from active sport to the next stage of their careers.
