Nine children and young people with serious illnesses were named as rockSTARS on Saturday night by local band The Sherlocks as they streamed their sell-out gig from the O2 Academy in Sheffield as part of US based charity, Melodic Caring Project’s inaugural UK show working in partnership with staff and students from Chesterfield College.

Patients being cared for in Sheffield Children’s Hospital or recovering at home were amongst the first to experience live music and personal messages of support streamed directly to their bed by Melodic Caring Project.

The Seattle-based not for profit organisation has been bringing the healing power of music to children undergoing extreme medical treatments such as chemotherapy, directly to their hospital beds, as well as their families and caregivers, for almost a decade. The partnership with Chesterfield College has allowed the organisation to kick-start its expansion into the United Kingdom and the college students will lead the UK branch of Melodic Caring Project as it develops to bring more live performances to patients in the future.

Media and Childhood Studies students from the college worked with Melodic Caring Project, The Sherlocks and Sheffield Children’s Hospital to film and stream the concert and to help the children and teenagers being cared for at the specialist hospital to access and take part in the experience. The Sherlocks delivered personalised messages during their performance to encourage patients to keep battling their illnesses, stay positive and know they’re not alone.

Levi Ware, co-founder of the Melodic Caring Project, said:-

“The impact of music on a sick child is truly profound. When an artist gives a shout-out to a kid by name, it’s amazing to see how they light up.  And they often tell us a show streamed directly to them not only brings them joy, but actually can help alleviate the pain and struggle of their condition or treatment. We are thrilled to be working with Chesterfield College and its students. Their unique skills, talents and relationships will enable us to reach far more children than we ever could on our own.”

A spokesperson from Sheffield Children’s said:-

“Being in hospital is never a young person’s first choice, but we try to do as much as possible to provide entertainment and distraction. It’s great to be able to add to what we already do for patients by giving them the chance to experience the gig live at their bedside.”

One of the rockSTARS of the night, 6 year old Erin from Chester, who watched The Sherlocks from home, first experienced the Melodic Caring Project service when she was in hospital in Seattle undergoing ground breaking treatment for leukaemia at the end of last year. Her mum Sarah Cross explained:-

“Having the gig streamed live into our room was such a magical experience. It totally relaxed Erin and she said the music was soothing and she loved the messages to the rockSTARS and loved the fact that there were other children from the hospital listening too. Such an amazing thing!”

Kiaran Crooks, front man of The Sherlocks, said:-

“This is an amazing thing to be a part of! It’s really incredible that it has been made possible to happen and we are very proud and honoured to be doing this. Thank you to the Melodic Caring Project for the opportunity.”

The unique partnership with Chesterfield College will allow the charity to establish their services across Europe using the skills of the staff and students to broadcast to and make connections with young patients in hospitals at the same time as giving students the opportunity to develop their work experience on an exciting and meaningful project.

Work to establish links with other hospitals and hospices has begun and discussions with performance artists are underway.

Chesterfield’s Ginetta race car driver Seb Perez celebrates his 18th birthday on Saturday as he travels to Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit (30 Sept / 1 Oct) for the last three races of the season in the Michelin Ginetta GT4 Supercup.

He started the season back in April this year with a new race series and new car after being promoted from the smaller Ginetta Juniors last year and has seen him in action at 8 very demanding race circuits across the Country including Donington Park and Oulton Park in a very busy and demanding race year for him.

His last outing at Brands Hatch Indy Circuit in April saw him finish the opening rounds of the Supercup  in 6th, 8th and 5th places.

Two weeks ago saw the Rob Boston Racing duo of Perez and Nottingham Teammate George Gamble in action at the “Home of British Motorsport”  Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire.

The weekend proved a difficult one for Perez finding it hard to get to grips with the Ginetta G55 in the slippery conditions over the weekend.

A wet qualifying session on Saturday meant choosing the prime time to head onto the circuit would be more important than ever. But he missed the optimum slot by a few minutes, meaning starting with opening race later in the day down in tenth.

The appearance of rain during the mid-point of race one saw Perez struggle and with the Ginetta. Twelfth spot would be a disappointment to the Chesterfield ace.

With the postponement of race two last off on Saturday due to torrential rain with some thunder and lightning mixed in, Perez made the choice to use slicks for the drying track on the early re-arranged Sunday morning race two. It would be an all or nothing approach, which would sadly not work out the way he wanted and headed backwards to 16^th at the flag.

Despite being much drier, race three offered little chance for Perez to make any gains on his starting position and rounded off the weekend with 12^th.

“It has just been one of those weekends again really, I just couldn’t make the car work the way I wanted it to,” said Perez.

“I missed the break at qualifying which meant it was just going to be a hard weekend all round.  I just have to look at it from an experience point of view and learn from the setbacks.”

Perez who is tenth in the series with 248 points, hopes to keep the series challenge alive for the Brands Hatch season finale.

You can follow Seb live this Sunday on ITV 4 as a support race to the popular Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

Images and editorial by Paul Horton

A third baby memorial garden has been opened in the Chesterfield borough to remember babies who were either still born or died at an early age.

The garden has been created by Chesterfield Sands, the local branch of the stillbirth and neo-natal death charity, working with staff from Chesterfield Borough Council’s bereavement services team.

The latest garden is in the children’s corner of Staveley Cemetery. It was opened by Pat Willerton and Margaret Tickner, of Crowder and Alderson Funeral Directors, who have helped many families who have suffered the loss of a baby and have always been very supportive of Chesterfield Sands.

Nicky Whelan, Chair of Chesterfield Sands, said:-

“We are so excited to have opened the Staveley Baby Garden following on from the success of the Never Land Garden at Chesterfield Crematorium and Boythorpe Baby Garden in Boythorpe Cemetery.  I know that our new garden at Staveley will help so many more local families.”

All three gardens have been funded following a host of fundraising events and activities by Chesterfield Sands.

Councillor Chris Ludlow, Chesterfield Borough Council’s cabinet member for health and wellbeing, said:-

“We hope that the garden will provide some comfort to bereaved families as a calm, beautiful place that they can visit to remember their lost babies.

“I know the team have found it a privilege to work with Chesterfield Sands on such a rewarding project and build on the success of the two existing baby memorial gardens.”

Chesterfield College has been given £160,000 funding from Sport England to reduce the number of their students who are completing less than thirty minutes of activity each week.

Sport England’s new Strategy ‘Towards an Active Nation’ puts tackling inactivity at the heart of what they do.  As part of this initiative Sport England is investing £5 million into projects in colleges that will support their inactive students into regular activity.

Sport England research found:

• Nearly 1/5 (roughly 138,000) college students are inactive i.e. do less than 30 minutes of physical activity a week as per England’s Chief Medical Officer’s recommendations. Nearly 2/3 of the inactive group do nothing at all
• Students who go to college are more inactive than students who go to sixth form or university.
• Being active can make a big difference to everyone’s health: 1 in 6 adults in the UK die as a result of being inactive.

Chesterfield College will introduce a Healthy Lifestyle project which will target specific groups of students who are doing less than 30 minutes physical activity each week with the aim to improve physical and mental wellbeing and give opportunities for individual development. The project is designed to reach out to specific groups identified as the most inactive including female, disabled and vulnerable students with emotional and mental health issues.

A range of initiatives will be introduced over the next two years using the funding from Sport England. The money will be used to introduce campaigns designed to increase physical activity, to make links with local community organisations to set up new opportunities for students to get involved in and to provide new and interesting physical activity opportunities in college before and during the college day.

Around one in five college students are inactive and many come from groups that have lower socio-economic status or from ethnic groups that are less likely to be active. Colleges in the programme will target these groups specifically to reduce the activity gap between them and their student peers.

Mike Diaper, Executive Director of Community Sport, said:-

“We are delighted to offer Chesterfield College National Lottery funding to help get students active. College is a crucial time in a young person’s development. It is often the first time that activity is not a compulsory part of their study programme and therefore all too many young people become inactive. This funding will allow colleges to be innovative in addressing the needs and desires of their students to help embed activity in their lifestyle in college and for years to come.”

Will Hughes, Healthy Lifestyle Lead, from Chesterfield College, said:-

“The funding from Sport England will allow us to offer an exciting programme of activities designed to appeal to students who might not get involved with the traditional sport offer available in college. We will be able to establish new initiatives which focus on wellbeing and making small changes to daily routine which could make a huge difference to students’ lives. We know that there is a direct correlation between physical and mental wellbeing and academic and individual development so this funding will allow us to make a big impact.”