Lions on the Prowl

Congrats to the Ballymun Lions for their recent performance against a strong side from Malahide last Saturday. The ladies have grown in leaps and bounds over the past few weeks and that was apparent given their stellar passing and shooting performance on the day. One thing that stands out for this side, is the overwhelming sense of team spirit. Everyone, including the coaches, comes up every training session with a smile and determination to get better both as teams and individuals. Unfortunately, the ladies are on break until after Christmas. The next match is on Saturday Jan 15th in the Poppintree Sports Centre at 10:30am. See you then!

B-Ball Against kilbride

SAI's ladies in green took to the court in Kilbride last Friday night in what turned out to be a cracker of a match. A few girls were unavailable for the Kilbride team, and two of SAI's girls selflessly volunteered to play alongside the opposition for the duration of the match.

Only playing together for 7 weeks, the girls have now gelled as a solid unit and are growing in confidence and skill week on week. Some of the passing and shooting displayed on Friday had the coaching staff baffled! Most importantly, the girls enjoyed themselves and worked together as friends and as a team. Plenty more to come from the ladies. Onward and Upward!!!!

Open House

If you are not sure, then the girls will tell you...you need to come say "Hi" to SAI! It's open house night at the Poppintree Community Centre Thursday Oct 21, from 4pm-7pm.

When you come, you will meet the SAI staff, hear some uplifting stories, and see the progress that is being made in Ballymun. Refreshments, biscuits and more information about our programmes will be provided. Hope to see you there!

Ladies in Green

Monday marked the beginning of a new era in girl's basketball in Ireland as Sports Across Ireland showcased their first ever girl's basketball league. Playing in the U-11 girls division of the Dublin basketball league, 13 girls from different neighbourhoods in Ballymun stepped out as one unit at the Poppintree Community Centre on Monday night for a friendly against the Rhinos from Finglas.

For some girls, it was their very first time playing organised basketball, which made it difficult against the experienced opposition. But with encouragement from the coaches and all those who turned up to watch, the girls found their feet towards the end of the game scoring a few baskets and putting together a some great team movements. After shaking the Rhinos' hands, the girls left the court with a smile as they were delighted with their effort and overjoyed with their post-match Snickers bar!

The girls kick off their season with a home match against Malahide in the Poppintree Sports Center on October 24th at 10.30 am. C'mon da Girls!!!

Treasures on Earth

Each day of the camp when the kids settled down for their drink and snack in the basketball hall Coach Dan spoke with them about the differences between treasures in heaven and the treasures on earth. Before the kids arrived, the coaches had hidden 40 euros in various places in the hall and once the kids heard this, they tore the hall upside down! It was a great illustration of how hard we will work and search for things that we seriously desire, but many times what we are looking for never turns up. Or, if we do find what we are looking for, it ends up being something that fades away or loses its value. This is no more apparent than in the sports world. Many of these kids will devote the majority of their time and energies into developing their skill in hope of winning competitions, trophies, or championships. Some will attain those achievements, but probably come to find those accolades to lose their value with time. But others will strive and search for these, but like the money in the hall, always come up empty-handed.

The great news in these lessons is that there is a treasure on offer that will never lose its value! Check out 1 Peter 1:3-7. In one sense, God is like the money in the hall in that he is always in our presence even though we can't see or feel him. Yet unlike the money, the God can always be found by anyone regardless of their cleverness or ability. Though we don't always see the immediate benefits of searching after this treasure, we can be certain that we won't be let down in our pursuit.

Message From Camp

Over 90 kids turned out for the annual SAI Summer Sports and Crafts Camp held in Ballymun last week. Though most of the day was spent playing basketball, football, rugby or doing crafts, the most valuable part of the day came when the kids settled down for a drink and biscuits while listening to various leaders telling stories that try to help build good qualities in the children. Pictured here is Coach Jamie doing a talk about how we can use our gifts to serve others, having the kids memorize a verse from the Bible. The jingle goes:

1 Peter 4:10, I have a gift and I'm servin!

Peter tells us here that every single person has a specific gift that is given to them. There are 2 questions that will help us discover our particular gifts: 1) What am I good at? 2) What do I like to do? Going around the circle, most kids shared what they like to do and what they are good at, and these are some of the various things they mentioned: math, football, listening, writing, drawing, taking pictures, video games, music, etc.. We then went around discussing the many different ways we might be able to use those gifts in order to help the people around us, and the leaders were astonished by how thoughtful the kids' ideas were. The camp was brilliant in that it gave the kids an opportunity not only to develop their gifts in sports, but to use them to benefit their teams throughout the week. Hopefully the kids will continue to keep that verse in mind and use their talents outside of sports in order to benefit everyone around them.
We all have been perfectly made and have unique gifts, but will we use them to serve other people? The choice is ours.

SAI Man of the Match

What was a great night for Irish basketball was a brilliant night for Sports Across Ireland. All-Ireland champions Killester played against one of the premiere college teams in America, Pittsburgh University, at the DCU basketball hall on the outskirts of Ballymun on Wednesday night. At the end of a tight match, Pittsburgh's Gilbert Brown earned the man of the match award that was presented by SAI's "Coach Dan." Also in the spotlight were 3 players from the local Upward leagues run by SAI in Ballymun: Hanah Ronan, Nojus Lukosiunas, and Nathan McKenzie. All three players have excelled in the leagues in the past where they have come together with 60 other kids from the community battling it out for 8 weeks. As the skill levels have improved, the opportunities to pursue basketball further have opened up for them. Though overwhelmed by the 6' 6" American giant, the experience on the night rekindle the kids' desires to continue dribbling the ball around Ballymun. While there are quality basketball clubs around Dublin for the boys to play with, SAI is excited to announce that we are beginning our first girls basketball team this autumn! Maybe one day our girls will grow that tall!!!

Blacktop B-Ball

This is how we spent our Mondays in July...



Good Day in the office?

What's the Story

Howya! This is where you can find out all the happenings with Sports Across Ireland and have a chance to raise your voice and engage. Hope to hear from you soon!!