Children, please teach us how to Play...

Although an Indoor Play Supplier Comparison website, the broader purpose of Share & ComparePlay.com is to help transform the Play Experience for Children whilst enabling businesses to profitably meet the needs of Families.

As part of this broader role, we hope to lead the Industry towards a more innovative approach to the Design and Provision of Indoor Play Equipment.

In recent weeks, we have started this Evolution in Play with a Competition that is outlined in the Press Release below.

As you can see from the above Photographs, the “Industry Figures” have already met and we will be releasing more details in the next few weeks; needless to say, significant change was on the agenda and ideas were plentiful.

One small change that was decided as part of this Open Collaboration was to change the name of the Competition to “When I Play, I Want…”, an open invitation to Children to tell us what they want when Playing.

If you would like to get involved or have any contribution to make, please let us know, we would love to hear from you.

The Share & Compare Play Team.


Press Release

Background

In a recent interview with ShareAndComparePlay.com, Rupert Oliver said that he was saddened by the lack of innovation in Soft Play since he founded the industry in the 1970’s. In his opinion, commercialisation has stifled creativity and restricted the potential of play, he wished for a return to children being at the centre of play design.

Similarly, as we recently watched three children build their own play area using only grass, ducting tape and a cardboard box, we realised that the Indoor Play Industry frequently misses the opportunity to provide environments where children create their own play experience that complements Soft Play equipment designed by adults.

Free Play

Inspired by these events, we conducted initial research and discovered support for so-called ‘Free Play’; http://tinyurl.com/mfo645 this excerpt from an article published in the Scientific American Magazine is an example of our findings:

“Data suggests that a lack of opportunities for unstructured, imaginative play can keep children from growing into happy, well-adjusted adults. “Free play,” as scientists call it, is critical for becoming socially adept, coping with stress and building cognitive skills such as problem solving”

Not only is Free Play an important part of a Child’s development, it represents one of the most exciting opportunities for the play industry. If we can learn to observe, learn and subsequently Design Play Experiences based on the natural inclination of children to explore and play without restriction, we will benefit not only as a society but as businesses meeting latent needs.

Rupert’s comments combined with several months of research caused our team to ask what role we could play in bringing “Child Focussed Design” back to the fore; we are pleased to say that “When I Grow-up, I Want To Be…” is the resulting Play Design Competition.

We hope that in naming the competition we have captured the sense of possibility inherent in children. We are often taken aback by the scale of the ambition or the way in which “What they want to be” changes on a regular basis; maybe after this we will have a few more children saying “I Want to be, a Play Designer.”


The Competition

Launching in August, “When I Grow-up, I Want To Be…” is an open invitation to Children to use their innate creativity and imagination to Design the Play Experiences of tomorrow with a promise that as an industry we will listen and learn.

Using Social Media, Children, Parents, Schools and Indoor Play Centres will be invited to use videos, drawings, photographs and prototypes to communicate what their dream play area would look like. Unrestricted by convention, economic feasibility or what is possible (previous answers include “Rocket boots”), the ideas we hope will inspire businesses and individuals to create play experiences that reflect the needs of future generations.

The launch event will see Industry figures designing their ideal play area and sharing ideas online; the real experts (Children) will then be given six months to change the future of the Play industry and numerous events will take place during this process.

In January, a Panel of Experts (including Rupert Oliver http://tinyurl.com/dbqtf7) will shortlist up to twenty entries and the Play Community will be invited to vote for their favourite entries and decide the winning entry.

Prizes will be awarded for the first three entries with the Design with the most votes winning a prize of £1,000.

Participation

This is an invitation to Play Operators, Suppliers, Parents and Schools to participate by listening to children when they tell us how we can provide play experiences that challenge, inspire and prepare them for a world significantly different to that in which Soft Play was born.

For example, Play Operators are invited to sign-up to promote the Competition with their customers and run activity clubs. In return, they will be listed as Partner of the competition (and be recognised as a Company interested in creating better play experiences) and be given the chance to learn how to prepare their businesses for the future.

Details for the competition will be listed shortly at http://www.shareandcompareplay.com and regular updates will be provided via Twitter @shareandcompare, http://www.youtube.com/user/shareandcompareplay and http://www.facebook.com/pages/wwwshareandcompareplaycom/38182708219

We hope you that you choose to participate in whatever way you can, please register your interest at ShareAndComparePlay.com to keep updated.

We are open to all ideas and suggestions regarding all aspects of this competition and are looking for Corporate Sponsors and Partners who will benefit in several unique ways; please contact PaulSmith@Shareandcompareplay.com for more information.

ShareAndComparePlay.com is the Indoor Play Supplier Comparison Website that Saves Play Operators £10,000s. The only source of independent reviews on every Supplier to the Play Industry, ShareAndComparePlay.com works to revolutionise the Play Experience for Children and to enable Businesses to profitably understand and meet the future needs of Families.

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