A little about me, having worked in enforcement for almost 29 years I changed roles and moved within the criminal justice system to work in witness/victim support. However this didn’t allow me to make the difference that I had hoped and I am now a senior residential youth worker, working with children in the care system. Hopefully giving back by using my years of experience to help others.
I am a mum of two who are both archers and their attitude towards life and it’s challenges inspires me daily.
I have been shooting since Spring 2018 and have been blessed to be part of the Northamptonshire County squad since that same summer. A number of conversations with different coaches and with the support of my physio and the county squad were key in the hard decision to admit that I needed to move to sitting to shoot.
I have been blown away by the reaction to the original blog that I wrote which was around these challenges and my struggle to stay in the sport and also stunned at how people have reached out to share their own stories with me and in some cases allowed me to support them. As a result I have written further blogs around the changes that I have faced, these can now be found in the blogs section here on my website, simply go to the news and updates page, search re-published blogs and you will find the original blogs, there are also new ones if you use the search word health. There are lots of blogs to read by looking around – take a look when you have time 😊
I have volunteered almost constantly in various roles since I was 16, for those of you that know my age – yes, that’s a long time – lol!
Those various roles have seen me work in supporting children with disabilities, families who face challenges and as a trustee in an epilepsy charity amongst other areas. I have seen and experienced how my time can be given to help others in a positive way.
I have volunteered in numerous roles within archery at club, county, regional and national levels since 2016.
From March 2019 to June 2022, I was an ambassador for Archery GB, I applied for the role to work in the areas of equality, inclusion and diversity and over the years I have created and worked on projects large and small.
Throughout my working life in both paid and unpaid roles I have worked in safeguarding, and it is here, in this area of my sport, that my reputation for wearing bright leggings sprang from, as an idea to help my then small daughter, please read this article published by Archery GB on 4th October 2021, you will have surely spotted some of my large collection as you have moved from page to page on my website.
https://www.archerygb.org/parents-in-sport-week-4-10-october-2021/
In June 2022 I decided to take the step to use all of this experience to create a social enterprise business to take my projects across the country, working with like-minded people to bring archery to large numbers of new people of all ages, abilities and within all communities across the UK and was thrilled to be able to set the terms to be granted Community Interest Company status ensuring that Integr8Archery will always remain a non profit business.
For I am truly “passionate in our ability to change lives through archery“.
