Rochdale Mayfield starts 2024 with a bang

2024 has kicked off to a good start for Rochdale Mayfield after a successful four-day holiday activity camp.

Working alongside Rochdale Borough Council, Your Trust and the Department of Education, Mayfield ran a four-day ‘Holiday Activities & Food’ (HAF) rugby camp for over 100 children from 2-5 January.

Mayfield’s development officer Carl Abraham explained: “The club has always delivered camps during school holidays but it’s usually at its full capacity by children already involved at the club. This year we want to go in a different direction, and we were able to target a new audience to the club for the very first time.

“Although numbers were a little lower than expected, the club did have lots of new faces in attendance and our club secretary has since been inundated with enquires of children now wanting to get involved and be part of our ever-expanding youth set-up.”

He continued: “The HAF programme is an exciting and rewarding initiative and again demonstrates the ambition of our club to always be moving forward with the times in providing a platform for everyone to have access to some form of physical activity through rugby league.

“For me, having one new participant at our camp was a success but we’re absolutely delighted with the numbers we had and would like to pay tribute to all for supporting and giving our club the opportunity to provide your children with hopefully an experience to remember. 

“Due to the success, planning is already in motion to hopefully provide another four days of HAF-funded provision during the spring holidays with dates to be confirmed and the process of booking to be distributed in the near future.”

In 2023, the community rugby club also provided more than 1,500 children at 22 schools with the opportunity to learn and partake in a sport they wouldn’t usually get to experience.

Additionally, 20 children who participated in one of Mayfield’s four programmes have taken up the sport and joined Mayfield.

The Mayfield Sports Centre is in the final stages of becoming an official RFL Community Wellbeing Hub, a family and community-based centre with the aim of bringing residents of the borough together through sport.

Carl added: “The club is always striving to improve on and off the field with ambitions to provide a platform and opportunity to get involved, build lifelong friendships via a community club environment.

“The success we’ve had to date proves the want with the club’s coaching now in a position to offer a service and opportunities that many professional clubs would love to have at their disposal.

“We are very proud of what we’ve created so far but won’t rest on our laurels; our work in the community is here for the long haul. We’re excited to see how far we can take all of our programmes and having an open door policy as allowed has been the key to the success we're currently having at the club.”

For more information about Mayfield’s plans, or if you want to get involved, please email either info@rochdalemayfield.com or members@rochdalemayfield.com.