Balmacewen Aims Games 2022

We flew up to Auckland then drove to Tauranga. On the way we stopped in Paeroa to see the giant L&P Bottle and took some photos. It was surrounded by the most amazing Lemon Trees!!

 The Girls Football Team and Boys Basketball Team stayed in their own 5 Bedroom houses, which both had a Spa and Pool. It was really an amazing experience. On the first night we all went to the opening ceremony. It was so fun, there were lots of dancers, singers and a performance by Mitch James.

There were over 10,000 intermediate aged kids competing in 32 different sports. Football played 10 games over 5 days. We had a lot of fun and played really well as a team coming 15th out of 32 teams! The boys came 32nd out of 76 teams, also playing very well against some fierce competition. Both teams got the opportunity to test their skills, and learnt a lot about the value of teamwork over the course of the week.

In our downtime after the games each team would jump in the pool or spa. One day we went to the hot pools and had fish and chips on the beach at Mount Maunganui.

Both teams played their last game on Friday, once these games were completed we drove back up to Auckland and stayed at a hotel near the airport. We had a buffet dinner that night and it was delicious!!. The next morning we had an early start catching our flight home at 7:30am, but sadly we got up early for nothing because our flight was delayed 3 hours - what the experience of travel brings.

It was awesome to represent Balamac at AIMS. A massive Thank You to Kylie Cashmore (best organizer ever), Kush (Assistant Coach), Belinda (our Manager) and Murray (my Dad and (our coach) Miss Hendry (Basketball coach) and to everyone who helped us with our fundraising so we could go and all the sponsors that made it possible.

By: Sophie Devereux