GetActive! Singapore 2017 Finale

Corporates and seniors add to the vibrancy of GetActive! Singapore 2017

Living up to GetActive! Singapore’s mantra; to celebrate National Day through sport, the 12-day event attracted more than 680,000 people through Sport Competitions, Active Enabler Programmes, Sport Festivals, school engagement sessions as well as working with events such as NS50 campaign and Car-Free Sunday SG.

Many of the ground-up initiatives supported through the Active Enabler Programme took on a national day theme, such as having National Service inspired obstacle courses, infusing some local flavour into the fitness workouts and collectively bench-pressing over 52,000kg in celebration of Singapore’s 52nd birthday.

GetActive! Singapore 2017 Round-Up infographic

Finale of GetActive! Singapore 2017

Some 4,800 students, staff and stakeholders from the Victoria-Cedar Alliance (VCA) started the eve of National Day early with an outdoor walk in support of Club Rainbow around the Tanjong Rhu area and played games at the OCBC Arena. Their event, entitled VCActive is one of the GetActive! Singapore Active Enabler Projects this year.

Students from the Victoria Junior College, Victoria School and Cedar Girls’ School at the GetActive! Singapore Finale

After their morning’s sporting activities, the students from VCA came together to witness the Sport Hall of Fame induction and led the National Observance Ceremony with a combined march-in contingent from Victoria Junior College, Victoria School and Cedar Girls’ Secondary School.

Linus Lim Wei Sien from Victoria Junior College shared, “In the days leading to this event, students organised several activities to raise awareness about Club Rainbow and their beneficiaries, and the walk today was the culmination of these efforts. Through this event, the students from the VCA schools have bonded even more strongly and had much fun celebrating the Nation’s birthday together through sport. Much time and effort has gone into the planning of the event and I am very happy to see that it has been such a resounding success.”

The finale event at the Singapore Sports Hub was held in-conjunction with the Sport Hall of Fame induction where three outstanding Team Singapore athletes, Joseph Schooling, Theresa Goh and Laurentia Tan were added to the roll of honours.

Sports Festivals & Active Enabler Programmes

Over the past two weekends, the Sports Festivals at the nine locations, the Padang, Singapore Sports Hub, Our Tampines Hub, Toa Payoh Hub, Tampines Central, Ang Mo Kio, Punggol Central, Jurong East and Sentosa attracted over 278,000 people.

Participants of the Superhero Walk that was conducted at GetActive! @ Singapore Sports Hub

Majority of the events held at these festival sites were ground-up initiatives supported by the Active Enabler Programme. The events were supported under the Active Enabler Programme through endorsements, received project grants of up to S$25,000 per project that aimed at targeting more than 30 participants, or received mass event grants of up to S$50,000 for events targeting more than 200 participants.

Mr Lim Teck Yin, Chief Executive Officer of Sport Singapore shared “This year, we saw many more interesting sport event ideas, and we are delighted that the various parties were very creative in getting Singaporeans to come out to play and get active. We supported more projects - from just over 240 projects in the inaugural year of GetActive! Singapore, to about 290 this year. We have received very positive feedback from the participants, and we look forward to seeing more organisations coming forward again next year to enable everyone to celebrate National Day together through sport.”

Mr Franky Wong, Director of Yello Marketing Agency whose event was at the inaugural Inclusive Sports Festival at Our Tampines Hub on the first weekend of GetActive! Singapore said, “This year’s Game ON also sought to cater to persons with disabilities, meeting the ISF’s main objective of bringing people from all walks of life together through sport. We designed the games in such a way that even those with special needs can play a part.”

Sport Competitions – National Youth, Corporate Games and Masters Games

This year’s GetActive! Singapore Sport Competitions went above and beyond to attract organisations, working adults and seniors. Of the 13,000 sign-ups, about 4,000 and 2,700 registrants came from the Corporate and Masters Games respectively. The National Masters Games had categories for people aged 35 and above.

The National Masters Games has given people like Mr Joseph Lim an opportunity to compete with other Volleyball masters teams. In his 50s, Joseph and his former primary school friends started playing Volleyball actively again three years ago. After hearing that GetActive! Singapore was organising the National Masters Games, he and his friends formed teams to participate in the competition.

Joseph Lim (first row, second from right) with his fellow Maters category Volleyball team mates at GetActive! Singapore Sport Competitions

“We were very excited to join the Masters competition as it rekindled the sporting spirit we used to have 30 years ago when we were in school. GetActive! Singapore provided a great opportunity for every Singaporean to lead a healthy lifestyle and team-bonding among family and friends. We enjoyed the games, the hearty cheering as well as making many new friends with the other competing teams. We can’t wait to join again next year!”

Celebrating as the overall champion in the National Corporate Games (Athletics) is Erovra Sports Academy. The team bagged 8 Gold, 5 Silver and 3 Bronze at the meet.

Erovra Sports Academy at the National Corporate Games (Athletics)

Yuvaraaj Palaniswami, Team Manager of Erovra Sports Academy said, “We joined the event for experience and exposure. Some of us ran our events for the first time despite having no prior experience. We are happy with our efforts because we had fun and bonded with each other. The win is a bonus. This year’s GetActive! Singapore was held well, and all of us had fun.”

Mr Lim Teck Yin added, “It is certainly encouraging to see more corporates recognising the value of sport, and supporting their teams in the corporate competitions. We believe that sport is not just for fitness and health, but also a way to build team spirit and bring staff across business units that do not necessarily work together in their day jobs. There will be more opportunities in the years ahead for all of corporate Singapore to get on board, so watch this space!”