IMAS is delighted to announce that Barry Horne MBE has joined the IMAS Board and the Mixed Ability family! Barry is the Chief Executive of Activity Alliance, the National charity which works to get more disabled people active across England. Over the past 12 years,...
The International Mixed Ability Rugby Tournament (IMART) is the world cup for Mixed Ability rugby teams. After the incredible success of the 2022 edition in Cork, IMAS is seeking new expressions of interest from clubs, unions, cities, or other parties to host the...
New clubs achieve accreditation. Two community clubs of very different sizes and sports were recently recognised for their dedication to inclusion through their Mixed Ability offers. People’s Park Bowls in Grimsby, supported by 2020 Community Sport have established...
Two pioneering clubs and their journeys to becoming fully inclusive. Picturesque Bingley St Ives golf club in West Yorkshire overlooks the Aire Valley, a route to the beautiful Yorkshire dales. The club has come together with International Mixed Ability Sports...
The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent an urgent call for action and are at the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. There are clear links between IMAS work and the SDGs. Exploring these links is important given the...
Erasmus+. Yes of course! That was my answer when I was asked to participate in the Mixed Ability Rugby for All (MIXAR) project back in 2018. Being able to go abroad and learn from like-minded people, who wouldn't want to do that? As you notice I was immediately...
Cannons and Dynamite blast a road to inclusion in the South East. When Matt Kuhn and Medway RFC President Mark Marriott attended the England Rugby Mitsubishi Volunteer of the Year Award in August 2021, they couldn't have foreseen how a conversation with players...
A few weeks ago, Mixed Ability Accredited rowing club, Bradford ARC, left the chilly climes of the north of England and headed to Turin, Italy, for the first International Mixed Ability Rowing Exchange. Rowers of all abilities shared their experiences and knowledge...
On Wednesday 21st September, IMAS Trainers Bronte and Cam attended an online meeting with the House of Lords, to discuss how sport can be made more inclusive and accessible for young people. This blog is a selection of excerpts from the meeting transcript. We’d...
The benefits of Mixed Ability sports go far beyond increased physical fitness, and even beyond improved mental health. Mixed Ability sports are just a snapshot of the type of society we would like to live in, and when the values of Mixed Ability are taken with us...
Ever since Anthony Brooke founded the Bumbles RUFC in 2009, asserting his right to play full contact rugby, Mixed Ability has grown across the globe and across a wide range of sports. From rugby to rowing, bowls to basketball, grassroots sports clubs are...
We’ve all been delighted to see group sports gradually returning to our lives over the last few weeks, and a Mixed Ability family day at Harlow RUFC last weekend was the perfect way to celebrate. As part of the RFU Families Fund project, IMAS delivered and evening...
The recent Marmot report 10 years on, highlighted how health inequalities related to disabilities arestill stark. This has been even more apparent during the Covid pandemic, which it is now clear has disproportionately affected disabled people and exacerbated...
Exciting times recently for Llanelli Warriors Mixed Ability rugby team who were featured on BBC Scrum V on BBC2 at the end of December to celebrate their incredible 25th season. If you missed it, you can watch it again here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gkhxhMffSe4...
IMAS is delighted to announce a new partnership with The Brain Foundation for the promotion of Mixed Ability activities in Malta, starting with rugby. The Brain Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation set up in 2015 and registered with the Voluntary...
Based in Swindon, Sam at Inclusfit runs fully inclusive fitness classes for a wide range of participants. Sam is an experienced, award-winning fitness instructor, personal trainer and a UK Disability Fitness Expert. We caught up with her to find out more about her...
This year, IMAS have offered placements to medical students from the University of Sheffield. Max Landsborough reports on what he has learned, and how the placement might influence he practises medicine in the future... On my placement with International Mixed...
In the beginning…In spring of 2017 following some earlier Mixed Ability training delivered to around ten of the Premiership community rugby teams, IMAS were contacted by former Gloucester Rugby and Samoan international player Terry Fanolua.Terry had identified a...
Mixed Ability sports participants argue that the involvement of experts by experience in learning, producing teaching resources and delivering their training adds an extra 'rung' to the commonly used model, the 'ladder of co-production. This 20 minute live webinar...
Written collaboratively by the IMAS facilitators Here We Go Again... The 2019 LeDeR Annual Report was published 16th July 2020. “Our updated data suggest that the disparity between age at death for people with learning disabilities (aged 4 years and over) and the...
