Sports & recreation

Sports & Recreation facilities at St Dunstan’s Ovingdean include:

• 18-metre heated swimming pool
• Fully equipped modern gymnasium including a range of wheelchair- accessible exercise stations
• Sports hall offering a variety of sports including archery, acoustic rifle shooting, bowls and darts.

Fully qualified instructors are on hand, providing support and encouragement, whether a St Dunstaner wants to run a marathon or simply improve their mobility.

Services include:

• Devising progressive fitness programmes, tailored to the individual
• Fitness assessments
• Swimming lessons
• Instruction in archery, bowls, rifle shooting and darts
• One-to-one sessions including tandem cycling, running, swimming, personal training and more.

In addition to the golf, fishing and skiing clubs, which are not primarily based at Ovingdean, our clubs include:

The St Dunstan’s Archery Club competes all over the country, against both visually impaired and sighted archers. St Dunstan's archers are hugely accomplished – five are due to compete in the All England Championships.

Our archers use a tactile sight in the form of a handrest set upon a tripod. This is lined up with the target to enable the archers to position themselves correctly. Footplates can also be secured to the floor to help maintain the correct position. A sighted guide assists the archer in lining up correctly and informs them of where the arrow hits. 

Visit the St Dunstan's Archery Club website

Thanks to a simple but inspired solution, visual impairment doesn’t prevent
St Dunstaners from enjoying bowls at Ovingdean. All it takes is a length of string to mark the path of the woods during the game and a sighted guide to explain their position. This accessibility makes the St Dunstan's Bowling Club hugely popular and friendly matches are held both indoors and outdoors throughout the year. Bowls is also played independently by many St Dunstaners who live around the country, so the club’s twice-yearly national competition at Ovingdean is always a social success, as well as a sporting one.

Can you imagine shooting at a target if you were blind? For around five years, rifle shooting has been a regular activity at St Dunstan’s, attracting growing numbers of participants. Some St Dunstaners already compete in a postal league for visually-impaired shooting and are in the process of setting up an official
St Dunstan’s club. Technology makes rifle-shooting accessible to the blind and demands no less skill. The target is positioned 10 metres away and the rifle has a light sensor which, when aimed, picks up the different coloured rings of the target and converts this into sound, which the participant hears through headphones. The higher the sound, the closer you are to the target.

Every year, the Sports & Recreation Department supports St Dunstaners in a variety of events. To date these have included:

• Flora London Marathon
• Great South Run
• London to Brighton Bike Ride
• London Triathlon
• Marine Commando Challenge
• Brighton Half Marathon.