Sitting badminton during the Paralympic Games for companies

How the afternoon works

The group arrives at the clubhouse, gets coffee, and sits down in the conference hall for a keynote by Dennis Gebbink or his son Myron. Dennis tells how he started Only Friends in 2000 because his son could not play football anywhere else, and what the club has become. Then the teams are formed and the games begin. Each team rotates along stations with a trainer: wheelchair basketball in a sports wheelchair, sitting volleyball, sitting badminton, blind football with a mask and a ball with bells, wheelchair hockey, racerunning on the athletics track and archery. Points are counted per station and the day ends with a prize-giving, often with a cup the client brings along.

A typical booking lasts two to two and a half hours, for example from 14:00 to 16:00 for Waternet on 5 October 2026 or from 14:30 to 17:15 for Orange Cyberdefense on 26 June 2026. The programme runs indoors and outdoors, so the weather does not matter. The original programme description asked the question the afternoon still turns on: which team adapts quickest to a new situation and wins through communication, cooperation and team spirit?

Blind football clinic with masks

Who plays with you

The trainers are the people who coach the children at Only Friends, and for larger days we add athletes from the Dutch para-sport teams. At the DHL sports day in May 2025 the wheelchair basketball clinic was given by a Paralympic champion, sitting volleyball by the captain of the Dutch sitting volleyball team, and the blind football course by a blind footballer. For the Rijkswaterstaat edition in July 2024 we worked with two groups of twelve to fourteen so everyone played every sport.

Archery at the Friendship Sports Centre

Who has done it

Since the start of 2025 the Paralympic Games have been booked by ABN AMRO several times, including a 300-person edition on 2 July 2026, by Waternet twice, by the Amsterdam police, DPG Media, Dura Vermeer, Orange Cyberdefense, Croon Wolters, Life Fitness, Sigra, the Directie Werknemersregelingen of the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Zuiderlichtcollege and the volunteer day of DEPT. MPI Netherlands held its Diversity and Inclusion event here in December 2023 with wheelchair basketball and blind football for 24 wheelchairs. In September 2026 the event agency behind one of these days wrote to the centre that it had been a success and asked to stay in touch.

Extras that fit

• A sign language workshop, as we did for Gemeente Amsterdam on 3 July 2025 for 210 people.

• A tour of the prosthetics workshop and the Friendship Bakery, where young people from the club work.

• A barbecue or dinner in the clubhouse afterwards, as we organised for a small group in September 2026.

• A clinic at your own location: for Nike's EHQ day on 5 June 2025 we brought blind running to the campus in Hilversum.

Winning team with the cup

What it does to a team

Managers who book this usually say they want something with meaning. What they get is more direct than that. Put a sales director in a sports wheelchair and the hierarchy is gone within a minute. People who never speak in meetings become the voice their blindfolded colleague follows across the pitch. And because the trainers are the people who coach the children every week, the afternoon never feels like a show. The booking also pays for the sport of the children, which the centre needs since it became self-supporting.

Practical

• Group size: 20 to 300 for a single session; larger groups become a sports day with more stations.

• Duration: two to three hours including the keynote and prize-giving.

• Clothing: sports shoes and comfortable clothes. No experience needed.

• Availability: weekday afternoons work best; the hall is used by the club on Saturdays.

Sources

• Endless Minds event records on the Trello board EVENTS ENDLESS MINDS, 2025 and 2026, and booking confirmations from the Friendship Sports Centre events desk (Waternet 5 October 2026, Orange Cyberdefense 26 June 2026, ABN AMRO 4 June 2026).

• Production book DHL Sportdag 17 May 2025 (names of the trainers).

• Programme description Paralympische Spelen, factsheet in the Endless Minds archive, and the ENDLESS EXPERIENCES brochure, page Visit Only Friends.

• E-mail exchange with Rijkswaterstaat, June 2024, and with an event agency, September 2026.

• friendshipsc.nl, page Vergaderen en events (clinics offered).