For the Augusta Sports Council, sports equal fun and big business. Now the organization wants to help businesses, big and small, to tap into the fun.
The council has announced its major fundraising event for this fall. The Big Recess calls on businesses to participate in a one-day athletic challenge. It will provide friendly competition along with promoting teamwork and networking among the businesses.
Michelle Pippin, the council’s CEO, told ABD this inaugural event welcomes teams from businesses of all sizes to compete against companies of comparable size.
“We have division one if your company employs more than 351 employees, and then that goes down to division four, and that’s for smaller companies that have up to 50 employees,” she explained. “Then also we wanted to give an option for businesses that have less than 20. They can still come up and compete as a team, and they can sign up for six of the games.”
There are 14 different challenges, including some of the most popular, like cornhole and tug-of-war. But several of the games are a nod to Augusta’s collegiate and professional sports.
“We have a field goal kick obviously, because we have two college football awards for punting,” said Pippin. “We have a golf chip challenge, hockey shot, soccer kick, volleyball, lacrosse, and a fitness-wellness challenge.”
Registration has started for the event. Pippin said the early feedback she is receiving from businesses is that they are excited about the challenge.
“I know a lot of businesses are looking for team exercises, team-building exercises,” she said. “This takes the brain work out of it. They just have to sign up their team and train together so that they can compete against other businesses. We’re just building in that fun, workday, team-building exercise for them.”
At the end of the competitions, businesses will walk away with more than just bragging rights. There will be hardware to carry back to their offices.
“We’re planning on working with Johannsen’s on our moving trophy for each division. They can have that trophy, the big trophy, and then you know we’ll have individual trophies for the games,” Pippin said.
The Augusta Sports Council has supported more than 800 events since its inception in 1991. Those events brought more than half a million athletes to Metro Augusta, generating a more than $470 million economic impact for the CSRA.
Funds raised through The Big Recess will support that ongoing mission.
“Everyone forgets that Sports Council is a nonprofit because everyone connects it to those mega sporting events, but we’re really the behind-the-scenes team,” Pippin said. “We’re working every day to compete against other cities and looking to host local, national, and international sporting events to promote our area as a sports destination in the Southeast.”
The Big Recess will be on Saturday, Nov. 7th from 8:00 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. at Diamond Lakes Regional Park in Hephzibah.
Additional details, along with descriptions of each event and registration, are available at www.augustasportscouncil.org/bigrecess
The sports council is also recruiting volunteers to help during the event.
