Lakers Social and Recreation Club is a beacon of community spirit in The Emerald Isle’s County of Wicklow, providing a supportive environment for children and adults with intellectual disabilities to thrive through the pleasure of social interaction and the joy of sport.

The Bray-based club was set up in 1989 by a group of local parents with intellectually disabled children who wanted to fill a social, sporting and developmental gap to help their children participate fully in the community and prepare for Special Olympics events in Ireland.

Lakers’ Fundraising and Communications Manager Grainne Clarke said the fast-growing sport of bocce had become a cornerstone of the club’s program because all its members could participate regardless of ability.

Portable courts from Packaworld set the stage for the bocce competition at the Special Olympics New York State Fall Games recently.

The inclusive game was one of seven sports played at the annual event, which saw around 1,000 athletes from across the state competing for glory on 21 October.

The bocce competition was hosted on 10 Packabocce courts, all set up within the eye-catching Adirondack Sports Complex in Queensbury.

Packaworld Chief Executive Peter Roberts said bocce was currently riding a wave of popularity and he was proud to see the courts helping to take competitions to the next level.

“It was a real bocce wonderland out there – an amazing event."

Rockhampton Water Polo Association in Queensland is preparing to host one of Australia’s most unique and eye-catching beach water polo tournaments this weekend at Great Keppel Island, on the doorstep of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Polo in Paradise will bring players together in the shimmering waters off the island’s coast for two days of beach water polo action. High-quality portable water polo fields from Packaworld will be used to host the annual pilgrimage, which sees teams of four compete in a ‘Fast Fours’ format sometimes described as water polo’s equivalent of Rugby 7s.

Rockhampton Water Polo secretary Lois Harris says the event – now in its third year – raises awareness of water polo in a fun way by taking it to an awe-inspiring location.

A pioneering program to promote inclusive sport in New York has seen basketball, volleyball, baseball, track and field and the highly accessible sport of bocce reaching a whole new group of students across the city’s public schools.

Co-funded by Special Olympics New York ($50,000) and New York City Public Schools ($300,000), the initiative is providing schools with competitions, coaches and equipment to ensure people of all abilities, including those with disabilities, can experience the joy of sport.

But while the growth in participation across all the sports involved has been strong, it’s the rise of bocce ball that has perhaps been the largest surprise.

Belgium’s thriving Special Olympics scene has been boosted with the recent purchase of six high-quality inflatable bocce courts to take the sport to new locations and communities.

Belgium boasts one of the biggest bocce Special Olympics programmes in Europe and is one of the only countries in the world that holds Special Olympics National Summer Games every year.

The bocce competition at Belgium’s most recent national games allowed for 115 participants, but with the help of the new courts, organisers hope to grow the game and cater for far more in future.

Special Olympics Belgium Sports Executive Bart Oers said the logistical challenge of transporting, storing and setting up courts using wooden court boundary boards had been a problem for years, limiting organisers’ ability to grow the sport.

A community organisation on a mission to improve understanding of how it feels to be blind has staged a unique goalball event for Girl Scouts at Camp Prairie Schooner in Kansas City.

Made possible by new portable goalball goals, the event was one of many ‘immersion experiences’ Blind Spot runs to enable sighted people to experience the world of the blind.

It was also the first time the scouts taking part had the opportunity to enjoy goalball – a Paralympic sport that puts those with and without sight on an equal footing because all players wear blackout goggles and pick up the position of the ball using only their ears.