New Zealand’s highly successful blind lawn bowls mixed pair of David Stallard and Sue Curran were celebrated on Saturday night, alongside their directors Peter Blick and Ann Muir, at the 2018 Blind Sport New Zealand Sports Awards.

The group won the Packaworld Team of the Year Award in recognition of their dedication and strong performances at the Blind Lawn Bowls World Championships and 2018 Commonwealth Games.

The award, sponsored by Packaworld International, was one of eight awards presented during an awards dinner at the Grand Millennium Hotel in Auckland.

The courts were pumped, and so were the athletes. It was go-time at Yuen Chau Kok Sports Centre.

An inflatable bocce court that is making the sport more accessible around the world was introduced to Special Olympics athletes and coaches from Hong Kong during a special training day on Saturday.

Bocce is one of the fastest growing sports for Special Olympics athletes internationally, but its accessibility to people in many parts of Hong Kong is hampered by a lack of community sports facilities and competitions.

An inflatable football pitch made its New Zealand debut recently as part of a pioneering after school programme being run at Glenview School in Porirua.

The programme – known as the Homework Club – sees volunteers from the community and local businesses visit the decile 1 school twice a week to talk about their work and help out with activities such as reading, cooking, crafts and sport.

​​Last week’s Homework Club focused on sport and saw around 20 Glenview students don the footballing colours of Germany, Netherlands, Portugal and France for an afternoon of football fun.

The Great Britain men’s team continued its preparation for the IBSA European B Championships, which take place in Poland later this month, by competing in an exhibition match using world-first inflatable goalball goals and barriers.

The match, played between members of the Great Britain squad and emerging talent within the sport, took place at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. The event was a celebration of Goalball UK’s recent Investor in Customers Silver Award and was a platform to raise awareness of the Paralympic sport.

Goalball UK chief executive Mark Winder said the event had been a great success, demonstrating the sport to people from a wide range of backgrounds.

More action, more time on the ball, and more fun. That’s the difference a new fully-contained inflatable pitch is making for children taking part in the Grasshopper Soccer Redlands junior football programme in Queensland, Australia.

The programme is run by William Fraser, a former Queensland U18 national premier league assistant coach and Brisbane Roar community coach.

Mr Fraser has coached football for 20 years and now devotes his time to developing the next generation with a programme that focuses on improving children’s athleticism and motor skills using the beautiful game as a vehicle.

The ancient sport of bocce has undergone a resurgence in some parts of the world, helped in part by the invention of a new portable court that lets players take the game with them wherever they go.

Traditional bocce courts are made of wood or stone and can be 8-14 feet wide and 60-100 feet long. These are the kinds of courts that were used in town squares and courtyards during the days of the Ancient Roman empire.

They look good and work fine, but they are far from portable. They certainly can’t be packed up and taken to communities and locations crying out for new and accessible recreational opportunities.

Bocce courts featuring a revolutionary inflatable design were centre stage at the USA’s largest Special Olympics state games in Florida over the weekend.

Developed by Packaworld International, the inflatable Packabocce courts feature a lightweight but highly durable design that makes them far more portable than traditional bocce ball courts made out of wood or stone.

More than 5,000 athletes, coaches, volunteers and family members took part in the Special Olympics Florida State Summer Games, hosted at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Walt Disney World, Orlando.

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.