The People’s Record Archive is now live and the Rochford project can be viewed by visiting www.peoplesrecord.org.uk

Rochford residents have still got time to add to the archives by contacting Rochford District Council’s Leisure Team on 01702 546366.

Once the material has been assembled, the records will go on display at the Rayleigh Windmill Museum, be uploaded to the Rochford District Community Archive and stored at the Essex Records Office.
Digital recordings of opinions will form part of the project, from everyone, young or old, from across the District in audio and video format.

There are also plans for a special oral history drop-in event at the Rayleigh Windmill Museum, a local artist networking event and a visit to local sheltered housing accommodation where schoolchildren will interview older people, particularly those who remember the 1948 London Games.

Rochford District Council’s Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Tourism, Heritage, the Arts, Culture and Business, Councillor Keith Gordon, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for residents to share their Olympic Dreams and Memories and for them to be archived for years to come. I hope as many local people as possible come down to Clements Hall on Friday and record their memories for what will be an interesting and historic project.”

London 2012 Chair Sebastian Coe said: ‘For our fourth year Open Weekend is focussed on celebrating the ‘One Year to Go’ countdown to the London 2012 Games and helping communities across the country experience the best of British sporting, artistic and cultural talents up close. I’d encourage people to get involved at a local event as part of this nationwide celebration; it will be an amazing event.’

With the support of BP, Premier Partner of the Cultural Olympiad and long-standing supporter of arts and culture in the UK, the London 2012 Open Weekend is now in its fourth year. Open Weekend 2011 follows the success of the past three previous years, in which over 2.4 million people across the UK unleashed their creativity across a series of sporting, art and cultural activities in celebration of the countdown to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Anybody interested in taking part should contact Rochford District Council’s Leisure Team on 01702 546366.

The week is Britain’s biggest school sporting event and the idea is to get as many schools and children to take part in an exciting week-long celebration of school sport.

On the 29th June, The Sweyne Park School hosted a Mini Olympics event for St. Nicholas Primary School and Glebe Junior School and UHI.  The event aimed to bring the magic and anticipation of London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games to the pupils, and to inspire them to do more sport.

The idea of the day was also to embed the seven Olympic and Paralympic Values, which are friendship, respect, excellence, courage, determination, inspiration and equality.  In total fifty-eight key stage two pupils attended the event and twenty year nine pupils acted as team leaders.  Pupils were split into teams who have competed in the Olympics and Paralympics. The teams then rotated round a carousel of Olympic and Paralympics activities. Each team was led by two year 9 pupils from The Sweyne Park School.  Teams accumulated points and the overall winner was Spain.

During the event pupils had the opportunity to meet Alex Dowsett who is an international road cyclist who has trained with Lance Armstrong and is an Olympic hopeful.

The winning team received medals which were presented by Debbie Patmore of Lloyds TSB who sent the following email after the event, “I would like to thank you and your team for making my time at Sweyne Park School very memorable. It was so good to see children having so much fun and clearly enjoying themselves whilst being active.”  Every child who took part received a certificate, Lloyds TSB merchandise and stickers.

On the 13th July another event took place for Key Stage 1 pupils with forty-six in attendance and twenty, year nine pupils acted as team leaders.  This time it was Mexico who came out on top.

The 2 events were thoroughly enjoyed by all the children who attended and were made possible by funding from activerochford, the Community Activity Network for the Rochford District.

Chair of activerochford Dave Record commented, ‘We were delighted to be able to support these events and that so many of the pupils were able to try a variety of Olympic and Paralympic activities. activerochford is committed to delivering further projects across the District inspired by London 2012’