Thursday, November 24th 2005

MOGA Madness took place on Thursday, November 24th, 2005. Over 34,000 students and teachers participated in a variety of outrageous activities across the country.

NATIONAL MOGA MADNESS CONTEST

School were invited to enter the MOGA MADNESS Contest for a chance to win a $250 gift certificate to CAHPERD’s online bookstore, Excelway, and for other fabulous prizes! Schools were judged for creativity, uniqueness, and for how well they met certain criteria. Lundar School, in Lundar MB was chosen for the coveted national title of Canada’s MOGA School and for the Excelway gift certificate!

Read more: Lundar School in Lundar, Manitoba wins MOGA Madness!

A HISTORY OF MOGA

MOGA Madness was first launched in 1985—The International Year of the Youth—as a program of Canada’s Fitweek. Since its inception, MOGA has been guided by the “for youth by youth” philosophy where you are involved in the design, planning, implementation, and evaluation of the activities.

The National MOGA Advisory Committee, the Canadian Intramural Recreation Association (CIRA) and CAHPERD volunteers were fundamental in the ongoing development and implementation of the project. While MOGA was a program designed to take place during Canada’s Fitweek (usually the first week of May), CAHPERD and CIRA incorporated MOGA with other long-term programs, and encouraged schools to become ‘MOGA Maniacs’ and promote active living initiatives that were part of and separate from MOGA.

After 1993, Canada’s Fitweek was moved from the national Fitweek Secretariat and was taken over by ParticipACTION. By 1994 ParticipACTION was no longer presenting Fitweek. CIRA and CAHPERD continued to offer MOGA thanks to corporate funding until May 1995.

Between 1985 and 1995, the number of participating schools rose each year from 66 schools in 1985 (20,000 participants) to 571 schools in 1995 (263,000 participants). The strongest provinces were Ontario, Alberta, Quebec and Saskatchewan.

MOGA Highlights

MOGA MADNESS was viewed as an ideal project for youth since it:

• Is fun, exciting, and can be left to the creativity and imagination of its participants;
• Provides student leadership opportunities;
• Provides a unique way to celebrate physical activity;
• Increases physical activity participation of inactive and ‘hard to reach’ youth;
• Encourages positive attitudes toward physical activity with a “it’s ‘cool’ to be active” approach;
• Promotes mass-participation;
• Is a great school “spirit booster”;
• Is an effective and fun way for school administrators to work with students;

MOGA MADNESS was considered an effective medium to:

• Raise awareness of the presenting organizations within school community environments;
• Raise awareness of other key school physical education programs, events, initiatives and resources;
• Increase awareness of issues around physical activity, physical education, obesity and sedentary living;
• Access an often difficult to reach target group.

MOGA involved all or some of the following individuals or groups:

• Students
• Principal and school administration
• Student council
• Athletic council
• Teacher advisors
• Student activity coordinator
• Physical education staff
• Athletic association
• Photography club
• Community businesses
• Community media
• National media
• City hall
• Police and other community services
• Family