The Soccer Quest Summer Camp for 45 Barriere youth had a rather wet day on Wednesday, Aug. 10, but that did not hold the kids or their coaches back from working on developing soccer playing skills.
This was the mid point of the five day soccer camp, but participants didn’t show any signs of being bored with working on becoming better soccer players; they followed instruction from their coaches with lots of energy and smiles on their faces.
Soccer Quest partnered with Vancouver White Caps to bring these summer camps to several Interior communities, helping young players increase their playing skills and have fun. This year the North Thompson Recreation Society and Thompson Nicola Regional District paid a combined subsidy to Soccer Quest to reduce the registration fee from $140 to $100 per child.
Coach Jamie Spendlove explained about the camp, “There are five coaches at the Barriere camp who work with the children in groups (teams), we focus on working on basic skills of passing, and other basic skills in a small sided program, then have special games on the final day of the camp.”
Most of the coaches are university students who are also soccer players on their school teams. As soon as summer holidays begin, the summer camp program readies the coaches to go out to many B.C., communities. Coaches come from all over B.C. and even from other countries like Spain and England
This was the fourth year that Barriere has held the Soccer Quest summer camps, and seeing the great turnout and the enthusiasm of the youngsters it is likely that the program will be offered again in 2012.
