Updates from Steve Tarrant - Director of Rugby
Today turned out to be very successful with the Breakthrough rugby lads being involved in three different functions, which all went really well.
Firstly at the Police Club we entertained another group of boys from TM Boys Home for some contact rugby training followed by a touch rugby tournament involving the Boys Home, Breakthrough and our friends from Standard Chartered Bank, all under the watchful eye of Gunny and the HKRFU coaches who have been putting the Boys Home lads through their paces over the last couple of months. As usual it was a lot of fun and at least one lad who is due to be released tomorrow has said he will come down to training on Wednesday. The Breakthrough team also had a couple of ex-Boys Home lads playing and the programme really is beginning to see some boys joining us on a regular basis. There is a picture of everyone above.
Secondly Robbie took a group of lads to the KW Ethnic Harmony No Drugs No Crime Carnival in Cheung Sha Wan. They ran a games stall, which people enjoyed and a number of senior police officers and local district fight crime committee officials who attended the function stopped by to talk about Breakthrough and what we are doing. This type of publicity and cooperation with the Force is obviously important to us as an organisation and so I am glad it was well received.
Lastly we took part in the first Kowloon/HKI District Sevens held at Shep Kip Mei, representing Shep Kip Mei, which is of course where the Police Club is situated. Tank organised a team of past and present Breakthrough lads to play and I am pleased to report that we won the final against Kowloon City 17 – 5. The photo of the winning team is at Breakthrough 3 above.
Last weekend Mandi, one of our volunteer social workers, took some of the boys to take part in a food distribution to the elderly at Shep Kip Mei Market. The lads had to collect up donated food from various stall holders and then take it and distribute it to a group of very low income local elderly people. The boys worked hard for a few hours but enjoyed themselves and tell me that it was nice to use their spare time in such a meaningful exercise and I am told the old people were very impressed by them. Some photos of the boys are at Breakthrough 1 and 2 above. My thanks to Mandi for organising and the boys for volunteering.
Next week is our last matches before Christmas and we have two games at the Police Club. First up at 1pm will be the U16s v Kowloon Lions, who are usually a very well drilled team and this will be followed by the U19s at 2.15pm v Flying Kukris. After the games we will adjourn to the clubhouse for the Christmas Party and you never know, Santa might even make an appearance.
As always it would be great to see some of you down at the club to support the boys.