2016 was a great year for me, going to different badminton tournaments around the UK and also working with Lothian Disability Sport Branch (LDS) and helping out at Scottish Disability Sport National events. The highlight of the year was winning the Princess Diana Award for inspiring people into sport. This was a great end to the year as it demonstrated that people were encouraged by me and understood what I was trying to achieve. I volunteered to give a speech at the end in front of everyone about what I do and why I won the award.
2017 started off a quiet year and our local club, Lothian Disability Badminton Club, worked in partnership with SDS to create the first National Badminton tournament as a pilot on the 28th of January. I played well and succeeded to the semi-finals of the singles and continued to win the doubles with my partner, Andrew Davies. In February I competed in the Scottish Four Nations ParaBadminton tournament in Ravenscraig, playing both singles and doubles competition. Although I didn’t win any of my matches I am happy with the way I played especially as gaining experience was one of my main objectives going into the competition. I’ve still got a lot of potential I just need to find more time to training and improve my skills.
More recently, I have been asked to speak in Parliament in front of college students to talk about inspiring others – something I have been spending a lot of time doing over the last three months. This topic is a big passion of mine as I work and play sport to inspire others. I aim to show people that whatever I am or who you are, everything is possible, nothing is impossible, it’s all about you inspiring others and yourself to achieve goals, that you would never thought would happen.
For the rest of 2017 I am going to be focussing training and also motivating and inspiring people. I will mainly be focussing on inspiring young people to believe in themselves and not to be scared about what lies ahead, use it as the future, something good and worthwhile to look forward to in life and inspire others to do the same.