Renaissance Care Olympic Games
This year, the Tokyo Olympics run from 23rd July – 8th August and we believe it would be a great initiative for residents and staff in our homes to host their own games to encourage everyone to have fun, get active and enjoy some outdoor time.
The sports will be based on Olympic sports with a little twist to make them relevant to our homes:
- The 400m wheelchair and walking challenge
- Seated volleyball
- The 60 second boxing challenge – how many punches onto pads can you do in a minute
- Pitch and putt golf event
- Shot putt – how far can you throw a bean bag
These five events are designed to get people moving, cover a variety of interests but remain realistic to abilities and can be adapted.
Renaissance Olympic Events
Opening ceremony
On Thursday 1st July, we will ask homes to host a Tokyo themed opening ceremony for everyone within the home to enjoy. This will officially launch the start of the Renaissance Olympic games. We would encourage you to be as creative as possible with music, food, decoration and entertainment where covid restrictions allow.
400m wheelchair and walking challenge
How many times can you walk or wheelchair 400m in July? We’re aiming for residents to do this once a day for the 31 days of July – more or less than this is also great.
We will keep a weekly tally for individual residents and the winner will be the individual who has completed the most 400m walks over the month. 1 walk or 31 walks, it all counts. This can be indoors or outdoors, aided or not.
Seated Volleyball
Using a balloon, we would ask a group of residents to see how long they can keep the balloon in the air, batting it to each other using their hands/elbow/knees/feet.
Each week throughout July, we will ask groups to take part in the event and count how many ‘hits’ the balloon gets without touching the ground. Homes will submit their score each week and at the end of the month, the group with the highest number of ‘hits’ will win.
Boxing challenge
The 60-second boxing challenge will ask residents to put on their boxing gloves, staff to hold boxing pads out in front of them, then residents to hit the pads as many times as they can in 60 seconds. This can be any punch but the more variety the better: jab, cross, left hook, right hook, uppercut – you hit the pad and it counts.
Again, we would ask for this to be done weekly and we will keep a running tally for residents. Then at the end of the month, the person who has done the most punches will win the Olympics.
Pitch n Putt
This event seeks out the golfing enthusiasts within our homes. Over the month, we would ask residents to complete the nine-hole challenge (placing the putting hole in different locations around the home/garden/community). Residents would start from 20 meters away and see how many times it takes them to get the ball in the hole.
After completing all nine holes, the person with the lowest number would win.
Shot Putt
This throwing competition is just as it’s seen in the Olympics. Residents can sit or stand, and throw the bean bag as far as they can. It’s a one-off event but the training is essential.
Alternatively, the event can be adapted and the ball can be rolled to make this more accessible for residents.
We will announce a date in July when this event will take place. On that day, we’d hope to get as many people as possible involved. There will be two winners to this event, one for the furthest throw, and one for the furthest roll.
Closing ceremony
On Saturday 31st July we would ask for each home to host their official closing ceremony to celebrate the involvement and participation throughout the month. Hopefully, we will have some nice weather and be able to enjoy some BBQ’s and possibly welcome a few relatives/visitors to join.
There’s no official theme for this – just celebrate the achievements of the residents.
Training
We know COVID has had a real impact on the wellbeing of all our people. Therefore, the purpose of the Olympics is to encourage physical and mental wellness in a fun and social way so that we start to reintroduce activity and normality back to our homes.
We would encourage homes to use June as a training month to help build strength and fitness. For example, possibly start at walking 100m, hitting the balloon 10 times, slowly encouraging the boxing movement then over time encouraging speed etc – whatever the level of ability, we’d love people to get involved.
Sportsman ship
We want to create a strong team atmosphere mixed with a competitive edge. Create team names for your home, purchase team t-shirts, create support banners that ‘cheerleaders’ can hold when they’re not participating.
Mostly, we want people to have fun and be active.
