Get your televisions ready... KEEN London will be on screen 19 March 2010. Thanks to:

 AND

They will be showing a segment starring two of our superstar athletes Aaron and Giverny. Airing:

There will also hopefully be two short teasers on breakfast and Lunchtime Bulletins the following day.

The Sport Relief programme is 7pm-12am BBC 1 this Friday following the news (watch the clip on the BBC website). I urge you to support it as they have been an integral part of KEEN's expansion – Cameron

: Run to the Beat Half Marathon — Sunday 26 September 2010

For those who missed out on a place in the Royal Parks Half Marathon, fear not. To accommodate the strong interest of people wishing to compete and fundraise for KEEN London, we have decided to have entries in the Run to the Beat Half Marathon on Sunday 26 September. Find out how you can get involved...

: The Parks Half Marathon — Sunday 10 October 2010

KEEN London's annual fundraising event this year is the Royal Parks Half Marathon. With lots of time to prepare, this is the perfect event for you to get in-shape for the beach or that BBQ summer we will hopefully have. Or it might even be that challenge you've been secretly yearning for to show the world what you're made of. 

All places have unfortunately sold old! If you missed out please see above how to be involved in our other event, Run to the Beat Half Marathon.

We may have a limited number of charity places available at a later date, but you will need to fundraise a minimum of £350 to be eligible for one of these. Find out how you can get involved...

Second session

For some time now KEEN London has been bursting at the seams, with huge demand for our services but no capacity to take on more athletes from our long waiting list. Early this year, thanks to generous sponsorship from Sports Relief and others, we will be running a second session in the afternoon.

Taking a different country each week, we will hold a themed session, with sporting and craft activities, exercise and music, all related to the week's chosen country. Each athlete will keep a scrap-book, to record their experiences from the session, ending the term with their very own atlas of the countries visited. This will allow us to provide activities that challenge some of our more capable athletes, as well as taking on new athletes in both the new and existing sessions — all of course wih KEEN's unique one-to-one coaching supporting each athlete and tailoring the session precisely to their needs.

The new sessions have been designed for athletes who like to use their imagination and creative skills, and work together in groups. The sessions involve a mixture of arts and crafts, role play, singing and dancing. There will be long running themes that are developed from week to week. For example, the first theme will be "an around the world trip" and so each week the group will "visit" a different country! Once we have found the country on the map and flown there on our magic carpet, we might get a taste of the culture by learning local songs or dances, or do a bit of site seeing and then make a souvenir of the trip. All this will happen between 2.15 and 3.45 on a Sunday afternoon, so it's lucky that magic carpets fly so fast!

So far we have trips planned to France and New Zealand — at KEEN, the world's our oyster!

If you think this sounds like something your child would enjoy, please get in contact to register your interest.

: a visit to the Science Museum

Water, wacky machines, switches, glass elevators and flies in 3D – the Science Museum had it all. On Sunday 14 March, 24 athletes and 47 coaches, not to mention several mothers giving up their mother’s day, got a chance to explore the museum.

“Fly Me to the Moon 3D” an IMAX film about 3 flies who stow away on the first flight to the moon, was a new experience for many of our athletes. Anmol, while not a fan of the glasses, enjoyed the music. Sam spent his time trying to catch the flies coming out the screen and Pace — a big science fan — found it really interesting.

Elsewhere our athletes got a chance to interact with the two hands-on galleries. In “The Garden” a multi-sensory playground, Aaron, Jake and Shine got stuck into with the water play activities. Felix loved the bubble show and Nathan found the area a great source of freedom, getting involved all parts of it.

Way up on the third floor was the “Launch-pad” full of science and technology activities. Sasha was obsessed with the grain pit, and in fact she has found her calling in life working the machine. John-Jo was the expert showing his coach around and how things worked, while Gabriel and James enjoyed exploring the different exhibits.

Some of other athletes also found excitement in other parts of the museum. Parsa, with his love of trains, inspected any exhibit to do with this, often wanting to see what was under and on top them. Elias enjoyed watching the glass lift and Hamilton found the tactile experience of the red plastic drapes engaging.

A fantastic day was had by all, so good that for some athletes such as Darrell, they didn’t want it to end – Cameron.

: ice skating

It was a cold morning outside and as you expect, cold inside the rink as well. Despite the frosty start, KEEN London’s ice skating trip ended up being great fun.  On Sunday 7 February we had 30 Athletes and 40 coaches supporting them along with a few parents, many of whom made it on the ice as well.

It was Rebecca’s first time on the ice and while her first few laps were spent clinging to the edge, she was very soon speeding away unaided, so fast that she sometimes left her coach Charlotte for dead. We had to call another coach Barbara, who has professional ice skating experience, to try and keep up. 

In contrast Elias, not so confident on ice, did extremely well. With the support of his coaches Ujjwal and Damola he managed to do a few laps, albeit sometimes the wrong way, around the ice

It was fantastic to see the Tylers – John-Jo, Tony and Julie-Ann – being able to come along for their first session in a while. Tony and John-Jo appeared very adept on the ice, while little 4-year old Julia-Ann had a great time.

The coaches did a great job of encouraging the athletes to push their limits. Gabriel, Joe and at times Hamilton, managed to get off the wall when they were aided by coach either side to give them extra balance.

On the flip side, it was James encouraging the coaches to push their limits. A very competitive skater, James spent the majority of his time challenging the coaches to race – which he consistently won!

However my favourite success story was John’s first time trying to skate. John finds new environments incredibly challenging and as result is very hesitant. But with patience and plenty of encouragement he came into the building, put on the skates, walked in the skates and finally tried placing his feet on the ice. For anyone who knows John this a fantastic achievement!

See photos from the gallery...

: The KEEN Christmas party

Like all good Christmas events, the KEEN London Christmas party had all the right ingredients to make it a success – a disco, decorations, fun activities, delicious food and of course Santa himself.  A big amount credit goes to our sponsors of this year’s event the Sainsbury’s HR department.

This year we had a total of 31 Athletes and 31 Coaches and many parents that came along to join in the festivities. Some of the athletes definitely came prepared for it – well done to Rebecca and Shine – the winners of the best dressed competition.

It was extra special for one person – Kate Baker – who after many years of commitment to KEEN has stood down as chairperson to concentrate on her work as a doctor. Thank you for all your hard work and effort Kate.

We had a sumptuous array of food that was purchased with Sainsbury’s donation, but also each family kindly brought a plate to say thank you to coaches and their work over the last year.

There was a fantastic range of activities to do – gingerbread men decorating, disco dancing, face painting, a bubble machine, instant snow, arts ‘n’ crafts, a story telling fairy and the popular favourite - balloon animals!

But the highlight of anything Christmas was the appearance of Santa and his sack full of presents. Every Athlete according to Santa had been good and deserved a gift.

A big thank you goes out to Sainsbury’s our sponsor, DJ Smiley providing the music, Ben Backhouse our photographer, Lucy and Joanne our face painters and Neil the balloon animal maker. Obviously a final thanks goes to all the coaches, parents and finally the athletes for making it a brilliant event!

See photos from the gallery...