Halton Happening Triumph
The three-day weekend of festivities to mark the opening of the skate park, ball park, mosaics and other outdoor facilities at The Centre @ Halton was a fantastic success and blessed with glorious weather throughout.
On Friday July 8th, the official opening of the new facilities was organised by a committee headed by Brian Jefferson and they worked very hard to make the event a success. The opening ceremony included an interesting presentation about the development of the site and the making of the wonderful mosaics designed by Maggy Howarth. It was performed by local MP David Morris, who used his childhood skate boarding skills to try out the Maverick designed skate park. This was a great way to see this state-of-the-art facility actually in use.
In the afternoon local children from St Wilfrid’s Primary School made full use of the new ball park, playing a range of games, whilst local (and not so local) youngsters experimented on the adjacent skate park on their bmx bikes, scooters and skate boards.
Saturday July 9th was the highlight and the main focus of the weekend, with a wide range of stalls and games and events for children on the field, in the two new children’s play areas and of course on the skate park. Apart from the popular sack, egg and spoon and novelty races organised by the local scouts – with equipment kindly provided by Caton Gala – there was a 1 mile fun run for locals and amongst the winners were Halton residents Simon and Jake (aged 3 1/2) Baines and Georgia Brown (also 10).
One very satisfied stall holder was Claire Foster of Ugly-Bugs: “ I’d just like to say that I have been involved in several voluntary organisations in the past but yours seemed to be very well organised and run. I have been very impressed with The Centre since the Nearly New Sale and would like to continue to support it if I can.”
Into the evening, there were local youth bands who entertained the crowds, and these included Cry-Baby-Aeroplanes, Fighting Bears and The Silhouettes.
On Sunday the 10th, there were very popular and well supported organised competitions with a great DJ on the skate park, and a football competition on the field. The skate park winners were : Scooter – 11 – 15 year olds – Danny Kiggins, age 12 (Halton) ; under 11s : Luke Topping, age 10 (Bolton le Sands) ; Skate board – over 16 year olds – Joey Hurst , 21, Lancaster; under 11s Isaac (8) and Seth Maxwell (7), joint winners from London. For the BMX competition the winners were – 11-15 Danny Kiggins (Halton) and under 11s Luke Topping (Bolton le Sands) again.
In the football, there was a very enjoyable competition for under 8 teams from Halton, Heysham and Leyland. At the end the players took part in the very tough Speedmark challenge which they all appreciated. A tiring, but very worthwhile day for all!
After the event, Project Manager Brian Jefferson said: “ It was such a delight to see so many people enjoying the recreation area that our small band of volunteers had put so much effort into creating.
The village owes an enormous debt to these dedicated few, and I can only hope that more people will be inspired by their commitment and volunteer to help in their own community and with the Halton Community Association in the Centre @ Halton.”
Tags: event, Grand Opening
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 1st, 2011 at 20:39 and is filed under Events, facilities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
