Hundreds more American Special Olympics athletes will soon be bowling their way to bocce bliss following a decision by Special Olympics Florida to purchase 28 new portable playing courts to help grow the game across the state.

Special Olympics Florida Vice President – Operations Akin Joseph said the courts, which arrived last month, had been impressive at their debut at the Area 8 Summer Games in Tampa.

Inflatable ‘Packabocce’ courts, first developed in 2013 by Packaworld International, feature a lightweight but highly durable design that makes them far more portable than traditional bocce courts made out of wood or stone.

One of Wellington’s largest junior football clubs is looking to the future with a recent purchase of 20 Junior Football Packagoals from Packaworld International.

North Wellington Junior Football Club President Andrew Vines says the club plans to use the portable, inflatable goals to inspire players taking part in its ‘First Kicks’ and 'Fun Football' programmes, designed for the youngest age groups of 4-8 -year olds.

The junior programme involves teams of five, with no goalkeeper. The two metre by one metre Junior Football Packagoals meet New Zealand Football Junior Framework standards for First Kicks and Fun Football, making them “absolutely ideal” for the format, Mr Vines says.

The nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines may be home to just 100,000 people, but that isn’t stopping it from sending a bocce team to the United Arab Emirates to compete at the 2019 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Abu Dhabi.

In 2015, the tiny Caribbean nation returned to the World Summer Games in Los Angeles after a 10-year absence to win silver in the sport of bocce. This time, they are out for gold with the support of portable bocce courts from Packaworld International.

Special Olympics Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has purchased competition and recreation-sized ‘Packabocce’ courts to aid their bocce team’s training efforts for the World Summer Games and help them increase participation in the sport of bocce across the nation’s nine inhabited islands.

Packaworld’s custom-made inflatable water polo playing fields featured at the Karratha Water Polo Association’s annual Australia Day water polo tournament at Malus Island, located 20 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia.

Known as ‘H20Polo@theisland’, the tournament attracted more than 50 players and numerous spectators, who enjoyed a day of sun, sport and the sea in a spectacular offshore setting.

Karratha Water Polo Association President Justin Angove said being able to play water polo in a location where few would even dream of playing made the event special. 

Full-size inflatable rugby ‘Packaposts’ from Packaworld International stole the show at the USA Rugby National Development Summit, drawing attention from conference delegates and many top US coaches, including newly appointed USA Eagles Head Coach Gary Gold.

The Summit was held in Denver, Colorado from 19-21 January, with Packaworld CEO Peter Roberts attending to discuss the development of rugby in the USA and introduce the unique portable rugby posts to delegates.

“Rugby is growing quickly across the USA. But it’s a tricky sport to deliver to new regions and communities due to a lack of suitable arenas where people can play,” Mr Roberts said.

​A unique inflatable goal is travelling New Zealand with Blind Sport New Zealand as part of the ACC Paralympics New Zealand Open Days, showcasing the exciting blind sport of goalball in a way that wasn’t possible before.

Goalball is a sport in which teams of three players try to roll or bounce a 1.25kg ball with bells inside across an indoor court and into a nine-metre-wide goal. Opposing players try to block the ball from entering their net by diving. Blind and sighted players all wear blackout visors to create an equal playing field, relying on sound to identify where the ball is.

​​Blind Sport New Zealand National Manager Dan Shepherd said while goalball is a major Paralympic sport, growing participation has been tricky due to bulky equipment – an issue resolved with the advent of inflatable, portable Goalball Packagoals from New Zealand company Packaworld International.

A social football programme helping Aucklanders get their kicks has added portable, inflatable goals to its arsenal for the summer.

FootballFix provides five-a-side and seven-a-side football leagues across 11 sites in Auckland, with thousands of players competing each week. It also operates an after-school coaching programme and junior tournaments at a purpose-built academy in Albany.

Ten Junior Football Packagoals from Packaworld International will feature in the academy’s junior coaching and holiday programmes, and FootballFix Director Marc Prenty says he is really putting the new goals through their paces.

The number of athletes playing bocce at the 2017 Special Olympics New Zealand National Summer Games has increased by 28 per cent since the previous event – and inflatable courts from Packaworld International have been a driving force behind rising participation.

The National Summer Games bocce tournament was played at the Hutt Indoor Sports Centre from 27-30 November 2017 using inflatable ‘Packabocce’ courts, which first transformed the way bocce is played in New Zealand in 2013.
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Special Olympics Regional Sports Coordinator Jayden Richards said the event had gone fantastically well, and was closely contested between athletes from 10 New Zealand clubs. 

New Zealand sports equipment provider Packaworld International provided Junior Football Packagoals for a community education programme and junior football tournament held for the children of south Auckland at Mangere East Primary School. 
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The Youth Forum included special training from former All White David Mulligan and New Zealand Football’s Fit4Football programme. It was held as was part of the New Zealand Communities Football Cup – an annual competition that aims to connect diverse communities through sport. 

​Developed by New Zealand Federation of Multicultural Councils in conjunction with New Zealand Police, this year’s event saw 16 11-a-side men’s teams, 10 women’s five-a-side teams and 10 youth five-a-side teams compete in three separate competitions.

Imagine playing water polo in a remote patch of ocean 20 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia or enjoying a major beach water polo tournament on the Sydney shoreline. This dream will become reality this summer thanks to Australian sporting pioneers using specially made water polo playing fields that float on the ocean’s surface.

​Malus Island in the Dampier Archipelago will be the setting for the Western Australian event, which will see dozens of private vessels anchor for a unique Australia Day tournament. Inflatable water polo goals and custom-made water polo playing fields from Packaworld International will be used to create a one-of-a-kind experience for everyone taking part.

The sport of bocce appeared alongside superstars such as The Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Killers and Jay-Z at the Austin City Limits Music Festival last month.

The annual music festival in Austin, Texas is a celebration of music over two consecutive weekends, and draws a crowd of nearly 500,000 music lovers each year. The inclusion of bocce outside the wine lounge and inside the artists’ area provided hundreds of festival-goers and musicians with the opportunity to enjoy a game of bocce between acts.

​“The courts added a whole new dimension to the festival,” said Peter Norris, the Austin Territory Manager for the American Bocce Company.

Wellington’s Village at the Park has become one of the first lifestyle villages in New Zealand to offer bocce after the ancient Italian sport graced its halls during Seniors’ Week.

​An introductory ‘have a go’ session was run by Packaworld International CEO Peter Roberts, who showcased bocce to a group of intrigued residents using one of Packaworld’s world-first inflatable mini bocce courts.

​Bocce is an ideal sport for people of all ages and abilities because it relies on skill rather than athleticism. The game shares a common heritage with bowls and petanque, but is played in a court with walls. This allows different strategies such as rebound plays.

Sports enthusiasts in several Asian countries will now be able to buy a range of unique sports equipment from New Zealand company Packaworld International, thanks to an agreement with one of China’s leading sports equipment suppliers, AirGoal Sports.

Following several years of collaboration, Packaworld and AirGoal Sports have entered a distribution agreement, which extends Packaworld’s distribution network to east Asian countries, including China.

Packaworld CEO Peter Roberts said the agreement was a significant milestone in Packaworld’s history and a huge step towards achieving the company’s vision of bringing the joy of sport to more people around the world.

An amazing innovation has the potential to grow the sport of goalball worldwide. The inflatable, portable Goalball Packagoal offers a sport hampered by cumbersome equipment  a new avenue to be easily transported and played in a wider variety of venues.

Former New Zealand Goalball representative Charles Tauhore says the inflatable Goalball Packagoal from Packaworld offers clear safety benefits for players, and has the potential to grow the sport worldwide.

Goalball was the first sport developed for blind and vision-impaired people. It originated as a rehabilitative sport for veterans who lost vision during World War II, and became an official Paralympic sport in 1976. It is played by sighted, low vision and fully blind people.

Packaworld sent portable football goals to the Fijian village of Namara to help bring the joy of sport to children at a school being rebuilt after Cyclone Winston.

Fulton Primary School has more than 100 students, and is located two hours’ drive from the town of Rakiraki in Fiji’s Ra province. Following the destruction of the school’s classrooms by the powerful February 2016 cyclone, tents were deployed as temporary classrooms, and the school sports field was affected by the need to store materials for construction.

Football Packagoals were transported to the school by the Gracegate Centre’s ‘Move to Fiji’ school rebuild initiative.