Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/651042
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 9 MARCH 2016 17 Events Sport stacking in Malta SPORT stacking is a hand-eye co-ordination and fitness activi- ty involving the use of 12 special- ly designed Speed Stacks plastic cups that need to be assembled in specific patterns on a mat in the fastest possible time using spe- cial timing equipment. Stackers race against the clock stacking and down-stacking plastic cups. It is an energizing and mentally stimulating activity. Sport stacking is a young sport that began 20 years ago in the USA. It is now practised in 54 countries around the world as part of the Physical Education (PE) curriculum and in sports clubs at a national and interna- tional level. Sport stacking forms part of the curriculum in more than 40,000 schools and clubs in youth organisations worldwide. The main benefits of sport stacking are that it helps develop gross and fine motor skills, fit- ness, ambidexterity, hand-eye coordination, focus, problem solving skills, team building skills and improved self-esteem. A university study by Dr. Brian Udermann, currently at the Uni- versity of Wisconsin-La Crosse, confirms that stacking improves hand-eye co-ordination and re- action time by up to 30 percent. This sport is both a mind and physical activity that can en- hance children's participation in other sports by improving concentration and reaction time. Moreover, it is a method used by many parents to keep their children away from spending too much time on screen devices (e.g., tablets), especially since stacking is quite addictive and contagious! Once chil- dren see it first-hand - sport stacking is something you have to see to believe - the list of stacking enthusiasts simply grows! Sport stacking in Malta in- itially started off at St. Aloy- sius College Primary School in January 2014 as a break activity done mainly on rainy days when the children could not go out to play in the yard. Being confined indoors with limited space to play, stacking was a great activ- ity choice to keep children active in the school corridors. Stacking fever then spread and captured the interest and imagi- nation of so many children that April 2015 saw the setting up of the very first school Stack Fest tournament. During this tour- nament, the baseline Maltese records for the different age cat- egories were set. Parents stepped in to assist and the judges for the event were the upper primary students who took turns to offi- ciate and record the scores. The St Aloysius College School community also took part in 'Stack Up! Day' in November 2014 and 2015. This annual event organised by the World Sport Stacking Association (WS- SA) aims to set a new Guinness World Record for "Most People Sport Stacking at Multiple Loca- tions in One Day." Thousands of stackers from all over the world stack various pyramids and per- form a variety of stacking fitness games. Thanks to the 618,394 stackers from the 31 countries who took part, on 12 November, 2015 - for the tenth year in a row - the WSSA STACK UP! set a new record. In Malta, sport stacking has spread into regular after school sports programmes, and into specific activities such as Stack with Santa Fest, which is a Christmas-themed event focusing around games using the cups. Additionally, a group of Maltese children is cur- rently preparing to take part in the World Sport Stacking Cham- pionships due to be held in Ger- many between the 1 to 3 April, 2016. One of the great things about stacking is that you can stack anywhere as long as you have a flat surface. And the costs are negligible: you only need a set of cups to start off. Children - and adults - from all backgrounds and abilities can take up stack- ing. Whether you are an athlete or not, sport stacking can greatly enhance your fitness routine. Sport stacking thus levels the playing field amongst children since non-athletic children can now compete head to head with their more athletic counterparts. This raises their self-esteem and motivates them to work harder in PE. Sport stacking promotes self-confidence, teamwork and good sportsmanship. It is a win- win situation! Sport stacking also promotes academic learning. Students that stack cups on a regular basis have shown increases in test scores and levels of concentration. This is achieved by students using both their right and left sides of the brain. When students sport stack they are crossing the "mid- line" of their bodies and they de- velop new connections in their brains. Should you be interested in taking up this sport, join the Facebook group Sport Stacking Malta, or send an e-mail to this address for further information: sportstackingmalta.mb@gmail. com. Key conclusions from Working Roma project Round Table on integration ON 25 February 2016, FOPSIM hosted the Working Roma project Round Table. Working Roma is part of the European funded pro- ject aiming to discuss the prob- lems of immigrants' integration and debate the slow pace of inte- gration in the labour market of disadvantaged groups, the current employment policies and laws and social corporate responsibility and patterns in discrimination. The Working Roma project is co-funded under the JUSTICE Programme with an overall budg- et of €227,452.04. The lead part- ner is Ayuntamiento de Andujar in Spain and the project brings together eight other partners including the Institute for La- bour and Social Research – ILSR (Bulgaria), Anci Sardinia (Italy), FOPSIM (Malta), APODEC, As. Developing Voluntary Work Novo Mesto (Slovenia), Asoc. Dominou (Romania), Oldham Race Equal- ity Partnership – OREP (United Kingdom), Komunikujeme (Czech Republic) and the Active Citizens Partnership – ACP (Greece). The main mission of FOPSIM – The Foundation for the Promo- tion of Social Inclusion Malta - is to promote and sustain employ- ment, social solidarity, youth and other marginalised issues to achieve tangible advancement in the transition towards a more eq- uitable society. The Foundation makes use of a diffuse network of resources in the professional, aca- demic, research and journalism fields. FOPSIM is actively partici- pating in EU-funded programmes and seeks to increasingly promote Malta's participation in EU affairs in the social inclusion and youth areas. The Working Roma event was held at the Grand Hotel Excelsior in Valletta and 9 delegates from the public sector (ETC Malta, Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security), private sector (Malta Microfinance, Leap pro- ject) and civil society (General Workers' Union, SOS Malta, Af- rican Media Association Malta, and Migrant Women Association Malta) came together for a round table to discuss about accessibility of the labour market to minority groups. In Malta, accessibility of immi- grants to enter the labour market is generally easily achieved. How- ever, the jobs that immigrants are engaged in are usually low skilled jobs, where their rights can be de- ceived. The Maltese government offers English language courses and some training, but since they are usually funded by the EU they are not always available. Further- more, the skills and competences among immigrants vary (from no basic education to university de- grees), but the qualifications are not always recognised or found. Also, even if Centres for immi- grants (for shelter, information, support) exist, their needs are not covered. Although, there are ben- efits available (training from the government, loans from compa- nies to start up their businesses) these are not completely exploit- ed. Moreover, the undeclared work is not totally fought. Delegates expressed their sin- cere gratitude for hosting this im- portant round-table dialogue and also welcomed the gracious offer to participate in the Local Ac- tion Group for Malta. Finally, they suggested bringing more team players on board, especially deci- sion makers in order to efficiently tackle these issues. The round ta- ble event closed with a decision of acting in this area, promoting and engaging further actors for the next event which will be organ- ised in March. For further information, please contact Fjoralba Kodrasi on fjo- ralba.kodrasi@fopsim.eu or call on +356 2339 0137. OzoSystem named National Public Champion in European Business Awards RSM today named OzoSystem Ltd as the National Public Champion for Malta in this year's European Business Awards, sponsored by RSM, after almost 160,000 votes were cast by the public to choose the winner for their country. In the public vote, people voted af- ter watching the video entries post- ed by companies at www.businessa- wardseurope.com and OzoSystem Ltd won after receiving the highest number of votes for Malta. It is one of 32 National Public Champions announced today from 32 coun- tries across Europe. OzoSystem Ltd is participating in the best growth strategy of the year category. "We are extremely proud that OzoSystem Ltd has been named the National Public Champion of Malta. The European Business Awards is a prestigious competition, and we are very pleased to support it and give recognition to all the firms who are representing Malta this year," said Maria Micallef, Managing Partner at RSM in Malta. The Malta member firm of RSM has invested heavily in building the necessary in-house specialist com- petencies to provide quality holis- tic services to its clients. Later this year, the firm will be moving to new premises where its 100 staff com- plement will be housed under one roof. The National Public Champion from each country will now go head-to-head in a second public vote which opens today and runs until 26 April, and will result in the company with the most votes being announced as the 'European Public Champion' at a Gala Event on 17 June in Milan, Italy. Adrian Tripp, CEO of the Europe- an Business Awards said: "It is a fan- tastic achievement to be voted best in class by so many people, and this voting stage has provided a wonder- ful opportunity for these companies to engage clients, staff, stakehold- ers, and potential new customers. Well done to all our National Public Champions." The European Business Awards was created to celebrate and pro- mote business success, and sup- port the development of a stronger and more successful business com- munity throughout Europe. Addi- tional sponsors and partners of the Awards include UK Trade and In- vestment, ELITE and PR Newswire. For more information on the Awards, the National Public Cham- pions by country and to see the winners' videos please visit www. businessawardseurope.com. Maltco Lotteries now on Facebook MALTCO Lotteries announces the launch of their new Facebook page www.facebook.com/Maltco in an effort to uniformly step up on the use of social media to pro- mote the company's transparency and customer engagement. A step that strengthens the company's relationship with agents, custom- ers and all stakeholders. The new Facebook page will fea- ture the company vision and im- mediate projects, product infor- mation, new innovations, photos of events, press releases, corporate social responsibility initiatives, sponsorships and more. Players and customers can en- joy a new way of interacting with Maltco Lotteries and also with other players through this new initiative.