Cumulus Outdoors Top of The Class for HAF Programme!
October 13th, 2023
“Excellent provision and children and young people obviously enjoying their day”.
Since 2018, the HAF programme has been providing healthy food and enriching activities to disadvantaged children through local councils.
School holidays can be a particularly difficult time for some families due to the increase in food and childcare costs. The aim of the programme is to provide children with:
- healthy and nutritious meals
- maintaining a healthy level of physical activity
- engaging, fun activities that support their development and enables them to meet new friends
The families that take part can also gain a greater understanding of food, nutrition and other health-related issues; this year the focus was on sun protection supported by the Melanoma Fund.
Cumulus has been part of the HAF Programme since the Easter holidays 2022. Since joining the project, we have extended it to all local children between 5 and 16: HAF attendance is free for children who receive benefits-related free school meals while families who are not eligible can pay to attend.
This summer, Cumulus Outdoors ran a programme over 5 weeks – from 24th July to 25th August 2023 – with a total 710 sessions booked. From Monday to Thursday, we invited the age groups of 5-8 and 9-12 year-olds (447 sessions for children aged 5-8 years and 230 aged 9-12 years attended). The Friday was set aside for 13–16-year-olds and Friday Adventure Club, which 33 attended.
Outdoors discovered, adventures enjoyed
Activities for the youngest group focused on raising interest in the great outdoors and fostering interest in local flora and fauna. The most popular sessions were den building, beach safety, Aeroball & games; our rock, fossil and dinosaur morning, animal tracks & trails, bushcraft with foraging and cooking over the campfire! The slightly more adventurous 9-12 year-olds enjoyed high ropes, kayaking and air rifles but also pond dipping and nature activities. And Friday Adventure Club for 13-16 year olds offered premium adventurous activities: high ropes, kayaking, bushcraft, knots and survival skills, SUP and Monster SUP!
While we previously had the Dorset Music Service with their ukuleles, this year we hosted “The Friendly Food Club” who ran a hands-on session with the 9-12 year-olds preparing their own two course lunch. This was extremely popular and successful – don’t your veggies taste so much better when you chopped them yourself?
Top Marks!
The Cumulus Outdoors Residential Centre was visited by the external HAF assessor, and they were delighted with what they saw:
“Thank you for hosting the HAF external assessors during the summer holidays, they really
enjoyed their visit to your venue, and commented that it was a joy to see all of the children’s
happy faces! It was also good to talk to the children present and find out first-hand how they’ve been enjoying their summer holidays and any suggestions for improvement.”
The assessor was impressed with the “excellent provision”, our staff who are “permanent […] and very experienced” and the fact that the “children/ young people were obviously enjoying their day. […] This appears to be an excellent facility with everything well run and organised.”
The assessor also noted that the two younger “groups are often over-subscribed with a waiting list” and that Cumulus would like to increase their HAF capacity.
Cumulus Outdoors is very much looking forward to running the programme again just before Christmas and in 2024 hoping to further increase the numbers. We hope to see you there!
