to not understand why so many holiday clubs base their activities around sports?

[CheesyWellingtons]

My children are into lots and lots of things - arts and crafts, drama, outdoor pursuits (den building, walks etc), cooking, science - you name it, they enjoy it. Except sport.

All the after school clubs and holiday clubs around us seem to focus on sport though which seems a bit absurd when lots of children don't like organised sport.

I've always assumed that this was because the various sports on offer are actively looking to recruit youngsters into their chosen sport Cheesy.

One way for the adults involved in grass-roots level sport to encourage youngsters into sport, is to encourage parents to sign them up for it . It works very well too imho. Sports need participants, so its a self perpetuating cycle for those involved. Especially for less popular (niche even) sports. Without young people getting involved the competetive element would eventually die off, killing the sport itself in the end.

It is also true that the sports council etc are very good at making funding available for projects designed for young people, which means that holiday camps do not need always need to run at a profit as funding from their sports central body covers the losses in order to promote their sport in that area.

Now, for drama there is no need to encourage children so much; drama/dancing/singing are in no danger of being 'lost' activities without the active pursuit of youngsters. They pay well and are attractive career options without the need to persuade people of that. BBC,ITV, Ch4 & the film industry bodies are not investing in young people in the same way as the sporting bodies do.

The same goes for cooking/science etc really. They are hobbies that can be picked up by anyone at anytime. Cooking is not going to disappear as an activity just because young people are not doing it in the school holidays iyswim. apart from the lovely Jamie O - no one seems that interested in 'getting kids cooking'.

That being said, I've often thought that someone who set up holiday camps in the way that sports do would be onto a winner...

YANBU.

There are so many other things in the world apart from sport (not that you'd think so from the disproportionate money and attention given to the Olympics). It's very unimaginative to only provide sporting activities.

Sports activities are also a lot cheaper to run after the initial outlay on equipment.
Science and cooking would use consumables so be more expensive - also harder (for adult) to keep it going for a whole day.

I guess there is more demand for cheaper whole day childcare in the holidays than the expensive cooking/science type activities which may only be suited to a couple of hours.

DD's holiday camp seem to do a variety of things - bouncy castles, trampolining, swimming, art and craft, singing, dancing, face painting. All the extra activities on offer are sport though and she'd love to do cooking or more art

In the summer she's doing a weeks holiday camp based round French language, cooking and culture and is really looking forward to it (she's 6 so it will be really basic but we thought it would be a change for her)

There are loads of different ones around here, surfing (is that a sport?), sailing, drama, dance, forest school, (including den building), music.

It's not always easy to find out what's on offer though.