The "Sport in the Park" program in Krefeld is celebrating a small anniversary with its 5th edition. The range of activities for young and old is even more varied this year and new activities such as golf and rowing have been added.
There are also sports activities in the areas of health and fitness training, water sports, dance sports and much more. The offers are aimed at untrained people as well as athletes of all ages. The activities are designed to invite people to join in and try them out. Under expert guidance, Sport im Park offers the opportunity to try out a wide variety of sports and learn something new. All activities are run by qualified instructors from the sports clubs in Krefeld.
Once again, the offers are made possible by the member clubs of the SSB and organized by the SSB Krefeld. It is particularly pleasing that The Hochschule Niederrhein is once again a strong partner this year, helping to make the offers free of charge for participants. "We are happy and grateful to be part of Sport in the Park as a partner again this year. In this way, our students can discover other new sports activities and clubs in the area outside of university sports - and all free of charge. It also gives participants the opportunity to get to know our campus as a venue," says Daniela König, Deputy Press Officer at HSNR. The offer for employees and students could be expanded in 2024 and includes at Krefeld South Campus Hatha Yoga meets Yin, Tango Argentino, back training - fit in the office and full-body training. See also: https://www.hs-niederrhein.de/hochschulleben/hochschulsport/
Sport in the park - how it all began
The "Sport in the Park" project offers non-binding and free exercise classes in public green spaces or other public places. Anyone who wants to can take part. Registration or club membership is not required. The first providers were some major cities such as Stuttgart, Munich and Düsseldorf, although they also worked with commercial providers. In some cases, the public-spirited sports clubs were left out. The success of these campaigns prompted the NRW State Sports Association to set up funding for the installation of such "free and outdoors" campaigns.
The aim of the project is to enable sports clubs to take advantage of this trend and make their sports activities known to the local population.
"Sport in the park" success story
At the start in 2016, seven alliances were sponsored for seven measures. The success of these "pilot" events led to 16 alliances submitting applications for 16 measures in 2017. In 2018, there were as many as 26 city and district sports associations offering "Sport in the Park" in a total of 33 municipalities. Interest and the variety of "Sport in the Park" offers have also increased in the following years - and the trend is rising. New partners have been added over the years, but many associations from previous years have also returned. In many places, there are plans to consolidate the offers.
The offer has also been available in Krefeld since 2020. In public spaces and parks, the citizens of Krefeld have the opportunity to take part in sports activities free of charge and not only get to know the sport, but also the clubs. This gives the sports clubs the opportunity to draw attention to their sports activities and, ideally, to attract new members. Last year, 21 clubs and coaches took part and offered an average of 27 courses. Around 4,000 participants took advantage of the offers.
This year, 2024, the offers will again take place throughout the city. This gives citizens the opportunity to do sport close to home.
The offers take place from June to mid-September. On average, there are 25 offers per week.
You can find the complete program here: https://www.ssb-krefeld.de/sport-im-park/
