Successful Half-Term Community Camps

By Mike Smith
30/10/20

Fresh from watching their heroes lift a European and Premiership double in the past fortnight, young Exeter Chiefs fans have been looking to learn from the champions at two Community Chiefs camp held across the region this week.

Starting off at Truro Rugby Club on Monday, then at Topsham Rugby Club a day later, the club's community department were on hand to offer top training tips to 160 children.

The two days had a slightly different look and feel to them, especially with the Community Chiefs adhering to strict Government and RFU Covid-19 guidelines, but the usual emphasis on fun, enjoyment and skill development were still very much on the agenda at both locations.

Groups were slightly smaller than normal with all participants staying within their group to ensure a bubble was created and maintained for the day. However, the overall Train Like A Chief experience still included more game-based training with some multi-sport activity to ensure rugby-related activity was kept within the RFU time frame. 

As part of the new safety protocols put in place by the Community team, equipment was cleaned every 30 minutes, whilst regular hand sanitising was carried out throughout the course of the day. 

The children - aged between 7 and 15 - took part in many different activities throughout the day, varying from basic skills such as kicking, passing and decision-making, to a variety of fun rugby related and non-rugby related games. 

Commenting on the success of the two camps, Aron Struminski, the Exeter Chiefs Community Development Manager, said: “With everything that’s been going on, it is great to get back to some sort of normality and run these half-term camps again. It's been great to get out into the local community, firstly at Truro, then at Topsham, who were hosting us for the first time. Hopefully, this is just the start of things for us and that we can keep providing more days like these in the near future.”