Camosun College is offering free drop-in sports for students throughout the semester. The drop-in sports program provides a social element to students’ lives, says Camosun fitness and recreation coordinator Meghan Lambeth. Lambeth—who says that some form of drop-in sports has been offered at Camosun since 1993—says that students get the opportunity to meet new people, reduce their stress levels, and maybe learn something new while they’re at it.
“We offer drop-in sports because it is a way to provide a nice social element and it increases self-confidence, you get the opportunity to meet new people,” says Lambeth. “Especially if you’re a student who comes from another country or another province, you’re probably not going to know many people here, so it’s a great way to meet new people and create friendships that could be for the rest of your life. And also to have fun, stress reduction, that’s a big part of it. And for some of them, it might be learning a new sport.”
The drop-in sports take place at Lansdowne Middle School on Tuesdays from 8 to 10 pm and Thursdays from 8:30 to 10:30 pm; basketball, volleyball, badminton, and indoor soccer are currently being offered. Equipment is provided and the drop-in is mostly funded through the monthly $3.36 student recreation fee, which every student pays. For activity classes like yoga, Lambeth says that most of the classes are around $8. While activity classes are not offered this semester due to a lack of interest, Lambeth says that there are possibilities.
“If you’re in a program, and if there’s five of you and you all want to have a break at 8 in the morning for yoga,” says Lambeth, “I’ll find an instructor.”
Drop-in sports attendant Ben Andrews, who is in Camosun’s Mechanical Engineering Bridge to UVic program, says that maybe half the students who show up come by themselves, so a community gets built around the drop-in sessions.
“I would say maybe half the people come alone. So the other half maybe have a friend or two at most. But the whole idea is that there is a very fluid community,” he says. “There is something there for everyone, and because it is very unstructured and very casual, absolutely people who can come in can just walk right in. That’s the whole point—it’s drop-in. We barely even keep score. It’s very relaxed, it’s just there so people can meet each other and have fun, and get a little bit of exercise.”
Due to that gym being in high demand, the drop-in classes take place in the evenings, which Andrews admits is “not at the best time.”
“But the thing that it is convenient for is that it’s right next to Lansdowne campus, which a lot of our students are living close to,” he says. “So that’s what’s convenient, we get a lot of people who live close by the campus already and dropping in at 8:30 or 8:00 is not so bad.”
While Camosun tries to focus on connecting the student body with each other, Ben says that students being able to bring friends to the drop-in sports might happen in the future.
“This semester, we really tried to focus on the student body,” he says. “It’s making sure that students feel like it’s for them, because it should be. Students shouldn’t feel like they walk in and they see a lot of people they don’t recognize or a lot of people they can’t necessarily relate to, because it’s about building community and making friends.”
Andrews is enthusiastic about volleyball and badminton being offered this year.
“It’s really fun to see; it attracts a wider variety of people,” he says.
The drop-in sports end for this semester on March 15. See camosun.ca/services/fitness-recreation for more information.