The Okehampton Community and Recreation Association (OCRA)’s Sports and Fitness Week came to a fighting close last Sunday (July 24) with a day-long Super Sporting Sunday.

With the weather on OCRA’s side, the community group was able to hold a wide range of sporting activities in and around Simmons Park from a badminton shuttlecock challenge to three-legged races and zumba.

OCRA manager Ian Blythe, said: ‘It was a fantastic event seeing children and adults doing something new and enjoying themselves.

‘It was the culmination of a really active week in Okehampton and we hope to build on it for next year.’

The day ran from 11am to 4pm and included both serious and light-hearted activities all with the same end in mind – to encourage the community to get more active and spend more quality time together.

There was family competitions and races, All Stars Cricket, archery, garden games and a park trail, provided by OCRA, while local clubs and organisations provided more information about their sport and how to get involved and join in.

Clubs included Roadford Lake Rowing Club, West Devon Swords, Okehampton Flyers Gym and Trampoline Club, Tavyside Badminton Club, Okehampton’s virtual reality business Immersion, Adventure Okehampton, Katie Drew Zumba, Okehampton Town Council and Parklands Leisure Centre.

In conjunction with OCRA, Okehampton Hockey Club hosted a seven-a-side mixed hockey festival on Sunday as part of the OCRA Annual Sports amd Fitness Week.

Teams from Caradon, Bude, Exeter Hornets and Okehampton, as well as the Young Gobblers and the Peppermints played out the competitive group stages; the Okehampton sides finished on top of their respective groups with the Caradon sides in second place.

The all-Okehampton final was a close affair with the scores level after full time. Five penalty strokes for each team did not result in a winner, before the Okehampton first team took the honours in the sudden death shoot out. All the players were grateful to the visiting umpires from Devon and Cornwall who contributed greatly to an enjoyable day.

This day followed on from Okehampton Tennis Club’s tennis-a-thon which opened the sports week on July 17, one of the hottest days of the year, in the middle of the heatwave..Undeterred, however, tennis players gathered on the courts to challenge Okehampton residents to play tennis for as long as they could to raise for Dementia UK.

The week of activities is just the start for a summer-long programme of events which continue as the school summer holidays get underway. The community group will also providing holiday activities with their sports and arts sessions which are accessible to chidren eligible for the Holiday Activity and Food (HAF) programme. It will be running activity camps for children over the age of three that include trampolining, crafts, tennis, cycling, archery, dance and more.

HAF sessions in Bridgerule and North Tawton will also be run by OCRA on behalf of the Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust and will be working with partners such as Waitrose, Adventure Okehampton and Fusion Lifestyle to provide more HAF sessions in the West Devon area.

OCRA’s partner, housing association LiveWest, will provide opportunities in Holsworthy, Okehampton and Tavistock for their communities for children. The aim is to provide free activities for children who would otherwise lose out over the summer holidays.

See your copy of this week’s Times for more photos.