Participants at the Clyde & Co Corporate Experience Day with WheelPower at Stoke Mandeville Stadium.
At WheelPower, we offer Team building experiences that take people out of their normal environment, by giving teams the opportunity to try wheelchair sport at Stoke Mandeville Stadium, while learning more about disability, rehabilitation and the role sport can play in people’s lives.
Our Corporate Experience offer combines sport, teamwork and friendly competition with a much wider purpose. Participants can experience a range of activities, meet people involved in disability sport and hear first-hand how physical activity can support confidence, independence, rehabilitation and social connections.
Seeing wheelchair sport differently
One of the clearest themes from participants is just how quickly trying the sports themselves changes perceptions. Activities that may initially look familiar demand different combinations of strength, coordination, positioning, technique and concentration when experienced from a sports wheelchair.
As a result, that challenge creates respect for the sport and the athletes who take part in it. It can also challenge the assumption that an adapted sport is simply a reduced version of an able-bodied equivalent.
For a participant at a recent event, wheelchair rugby stood up simply as an enjoyable sport in its own right. He described the value of seeing both the range of opportunities available and the potential for sport to improve lives, adding that experiencing it first-hand “really brings it home”.
Building understanding through experience
Things can get very competitive!
No corporate experience can replicate what it means to live with a disability, nor is that the intention. What the day can do is give participants a different perspective and start conversations that are difficult to create through a presentation or conventional team-building activity alone.
Paul Warren, Haven Insurance
“It’s been really insightful. It gives you a really good idea of what people go through, some of the challenges they face and the things that we take for granted.”
Barrister Edmund Townsend, whose work includes catastrophic injury cases, saw particular value in the opportunity to build understanding between people with different experiences.
Barrister Edmund Townsend
“It’s only once you break down those barriers between different groups that people can experience and get some kind of insight into a different world. It’s only then that people can understand.”
The impact of sport beyond the court
The sporting activities are only one part of the experience. Hearing directly from disabled athletes and people with lived experience can help participants understand why access to sport matters. At the recent corporate day, several participants highlighted para althlete Saffron’s story and her reflections on life after spinal injury as one of the most memorable parts of the event.
“I found what Saffron said inspiring, and it was really interesting to hear how sport helped her in her recovery.”
This connection between sport and wider wellbeing sits at the heart of WheelPower’s work. Sport can provide far more than physical activity: it can create confidence, independence, purpose, friendships and a community of people sharing knowledge and experience.
A shared experience for your team
For participating organisations, the day is also designed to work as a team experience. Colleagues try unfamiliar activities together, learn new skills, compete, encourage one another and share the inevitable successes and mistakes.
Wheelchair basketball, rugby, badminton, table tennis and shooting can all create different challenges, but the common thread is participation. People are not watching disability sport from the sidelines; they are getting involved.
“The highlight was playing wheelchair basketball. A lot of fun, teamwork – and it does make you think about how lucky we are to have full mobility.
The reaction to learning a new sport can be remarkably universal. One wheelchair rugby volunteer described the enjoyment among corporate participants as a simple sense of joy at trying something new and achieving a result.
Corporate support matters to WheelPower
For WheelPower, these days have a dual purpose. They create a valuable experience for companies while generating funds, awareness and relationships that help the charity continue its work with disabled people.
Martin McElhatton, Chief Executive, WheelPower (1)
“It gives the people who come here to Stoke Mandeville Stadium an insight and an understanding about the challenges that disabled people face after injury, and how sport can be transformational.”
Funds raised through corporate activity help WheelPower provide opportunities at grassroots level for young and newly disabled people, including sports festivals, online programmes and support for people following spinal injury.
Martin McElhatton, Chief Executive, WheelPower (2)
“Sport can provide hope, independence, confidence and self-esteem. It’s also very social – it brings people together.”
The value can continue after the day
For some organisations, particularly those whose work brings them into contact with people following serious injury, the experience can have an additional practical value. Greater awareness of accessible sport means participants may be better placed to signpost somebody towards an opportunity they had not previously considered.
Helen, a wheelchair rugby player and volunteer, explained that somebody attending a corporate day may later meet a disabled person and be able to tell them about wheelchair rugby, share their own positive experience and point them towards the sport.
That creates a useful multiplier effect: awareness gained during one corporate day can travel much further.
Bring your team to WheelPower
A WheelPower Corporate Experience Day is an opportunity to bring colleagues together around something enjoyable, challenging and purposeful. Teams can experience wheelchair sport, gain a greater understanding of disability and see directly why access to sport matters, while their participation supports WheelPower’s work.
For companies looking for an alternative to a conventional team-building day, it offers a shared experience with a clear connection to social impact.
Find out more about Corporate Experience Days with WheelPower and talk to our team about creating an experience for your organisation.
