Lord’s Cricket Ground – well, not the ground but one of the hospitality areas for Sainsbury’s Active Kids conference. Sainsbury’s, in corporate responsibility mode, have invested a lot of time and energy in working with thousands of kids to find out what they think could be done to get them to be more active. Today’s event is the ‘winners’ from eleven schools across the country (St Aloysius from my patch) to come and present their proposals to invited guests – as well as the big wigs from Sainsbury’s.

The kids were absolutely brilliant – presenting all kinds of ideas from health diets and how to cook to alternative sports for those who perhaps don’t take to the normal netball, football etc.

I’m sure Sainsubry’s will be reporting on all the details – but the idea is good. Corporate responsibility is an interesting one – and on the whole I have decided that whilst the company may very well be doing it to improve the public view of them and even ultimately up their sales – en route they can do quite a lot of good. Given that obesity is a major challenge (and cost) coming down the line – we do want to see our leading supermarkets acting responsibly.

The day itself was brilliant for the kids as they had a number of ‘celebs’ there including Peter Jones (Dragon’s Den) for the entrepreneurial kids, Dame Kelly Holmes and a gold medal cyclist for the sporting, Levi Roots (Reggae Reggae sauce) and so on – and the kids really did seem to have a great time.

Of course – proof of pudding will be what Sainsbury’s do with the results of all this effort. The kids expect!