When you think about volleyball, your mind might go straight to that scene from Top Gun but for year 11 HBS students, they have been focusing more on their techniques and skills thanks to a new club.
Extracurricular activities have been cut down hugely because of COVID restrictions, but that didn’t stop Emma and Sandriya in Year 11 of HBS setting up their own volleyball club for all year 11s, in a bid to share their enthusiasm for the sport. Following the runaway success of the club’s first session on Thursday, I spoke to one of the club’s founders, Emma Paulson, to find out more.
Whilst volleyball might not be your best sport, for the club founders it’s definitely a favourite and they decided to run the club ‘to get [their] classmates active’- something they’ve certainly succeeded with the first session- we were all left sweaty and exhausted by the end. Emma also told me another motivation was that ‘we don’t get much time playing volleyball in PE’ as Year 11s in HBS just have 1 PE lesson a week and there is only a small space available to students.
Talking to Emma about the difficulties posed by coronavirus, there is clearly a lot more to consider when setting up a club compared to previous years. Everything must be sanitised and there needs to be a strict register, limiting the number that can come to this oversubscribed club to only 18. Working around canteen times further limits the time for playing volleyball but undeterred by this Emma remains positive, telling me that ‘we are extremely lucky to even be able to run the club in the first place, given the current circumstances.’
Despite these challenges, the first session of the volleyball club was definitely a success. As Emma said ‘we all had a lot of fun playing together,’ and the more relaxed attitude the pair have towards leading the club made it a perfect way to unwind between classes. We spent the lunchtime playing one large match against each other, helping to introduce us back into the world of volleyball after so many months.
Shreya Kumar, a year 11 HBS student who also went to the club on Thursday described it as an ‘extremely entertaining and wholesome activity,’ something that I’m sure would be backed up by all of us lucky enough to attend. In the face of all the stress and anxiety felt by students (and adults) alike nowadays, it is as important as ever to find ways to loosen up and stay active and the volleyball club set up by Emma and Sandriya is the perfect way to do so.
Eve Nicholls
