News

A Testament to Youth

(James, 2nd left, with fellow volunteers and members)

It’s not just the ‘oldies’ who enjoy our clubs, young folk do as well as we found out when we popped into our Cupar club recently and met 17-year-old James Beaumont. James is a sixth-year student at Bell Baxter High School.  

Our Cupar club only started last Autumn at Duffus Park Bowling Club and is already a firm favourite with the wide group of members. We did hold a taster session before launching and James dropped in to see what it was all about after some encouragement from Rona McCraw, our local co-ordinator. James is aiming for a career in physiotherapy and thought that his university application would benefit from volunteering with people of various age groups and abilities. Sporting Memories fitted the bill and fortunately our meeting time coincided with one of his free study periods. 

Contributing every week 

Since the start James has been a constant presence at the club – studies permitting. When asked what his favourite aspect of coming to Sporting Memories, James reflected on the belief that he has learned a great deal since volunteering. One example of this is that James thought he knew a fair bit about sport but soon realised that was not the case - every week he picks up knowledge from the members.  

He also enjoys working with the members by helping them to play carpet bowls, creating quizzes and taking exercise sessions suitable for the mixed abilities of the group.  

We were curious as to why such a young person kept coming to the club but James reasons were quite simple: “I like to keep busy and make a difference.”  

However, Sporting Memories isn’t the only place he volunteers at. James lives in a small village just outside Cupar called Dunshelt which is served by a Community Shop run by volunteers. James has no hesitation in popping in when they are short handed to help out. He also coaches in Squash with both youngsters and mature players, all the time fitting in his own practice to improve his seventh place in the national rankings. 

A winner in the making 

Sport is such a massive part of James’s life, and while James’s dream job still hasn’t formed in his mind, right now he’s thoroughly enjoying learning about Biology and how to ensure injury prevention, along with sports trivia from the club sessions! 

We have no doubt James will go onto great things, be it in squash, physiotherapy or even a pub quiz star of the future in the sports round!   

It has been great to have the next generation helping our generation of members get the most of their Sporting Memories experiences in Cupar – thank you James!