NEWS

With the cancellation of the 2026 National Sports Programme by CSSC the Departmental Sports and Recreation Associations from across Government have come together to offer some open competitions. The list of events (see image below) is still in the early stages but those that have links available will be published in our calendar of events on the SPARTA home page. If there are any events that you are interested in taking part in and would like more information then please get

Sinfonia Smith Square The Civil Service Choir welcomed Spring with two marvellous performances at Sinfonia Smith Square. The Chamber Choir featured in the Easter Festival, which is a sublime week of Easter concerts at Sinfonia Smith Square. The Chamber Choir performing at the Easter Festival The Easter Festival brings together some of the finest voices in classical music from across the city and beyond for a week of reflection, renewal, and transcendent beauty. Performing cho

The Sparta Golf Society has a wonderful line up of fixtures playing at courses mainly in and around London. Its history goes back over 100 years and they are still play for many of the original trophies. They welcome colleagues from both the MHCLG and DfT departments, their agencies and related bodies. In addition, family members and friends are also welcome. The wonderful East Berkshire Golf Club Their 2026 season kicked off at East Berkshire Golf Club near Crowthorne on 23r

The St James and Westminster players are the only civil service drama society and have been going for over 70 years!. So far this year we have put on one online production "An Amateur Sleuth's Casebook" which featured all original pieces around the themes of spies, detectives and espionage. We recently launched our you tube channel, the links below will take you to just some of the recent recordings including our productions from 2025 including Twelfth Night performed in Febr

The UK’s annual celebration of cycling takes place starts on 8th June and runs on until 14th June. Why not get involved? Run by Cycling UK for more than 100 years, Bike Week is the UK’s biggest celebration of cycling and a chance to show how cycling can make everyday life better for people and communities across the country. Cycling UK’s mission is to create happier, healthier and greener lives through cycling, and through Bike Week they are inspiring more people to experien

The SPARTA History Society has some incredible talks upcoming. Their talks are online from Great Minster House (GMH) and Leeds if you are able to attend in person then please do as our speakers like an audience. Thursday 30th April - Lost Victorian Interiors - Steven Brindle Online Talk from GMH 5.7 Microsoft Teams meeting: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/38288347787619?p=IqV4HToFMuKeRlttmx Victorian London was the richest city in the world, the centre of British society an

The SPARTA Netball Club has continued to build momentum over the past few weeks, with strong attendance and a great level of engagement across all sessions. The group has welcomed a mix of regular players and newcomers, creating an inclusive friendly and supportive environment for all abilities. Sessions have focused on improving core skills such as game understanding, passing accuracy, and positioning on court, with plenty of opportunity for match play. This has helped to bu

Netball at Sports Day 2025 SPARTA is pleased to announce that the SPARTA Netball Club has relaunched. On Friday 23rd January, they held a netball taster session at the 2 Marsham Street Sports Hall, bringing together 17 colleagues from four different departments. After a quick warm up, they ran a few simple drills before moving into a friendly game, which turned out to be very evenly matched. The group included a mix of complete beginners and regular players, but everyone got

The SPARTA Astronomy Society are pleased to announce that after pre flight checks lasting several months their society was successfully launched with its first meeting at the end of last year. Ideas were gathered and plans for many exciting future missions were discussed and are now being put into motion. If you are interested in space, space flight, astronomy and stargazing but don’t know where to start, come and join the club! Open to everyone we kick off on Friday 13th

Superstars Cricket Club are already preparing for an exciting year of cricket in 2026. The Superstars CC on tour in 2025 Nets Nets have been booked in the excellent facilities provided at the Oval cricket ground. These are taking place in February and March, and more nets are planned for April. Contact osdsuperstars_cc@hotmail.co.uk if you are interested in joining them for nets. All abilities from beginner level to Ben Stokes (but with less injuries) level welcome. Tour A

After a full-on festive season of carols and Christmas music through the ages, the Civil Service Choir have started preparing a new repertoire for Spring! On Sunday, the 26th of April , the choir will be performing Haydn’s The Creation at Sinfonia Smith Square. Published in 1800, The Creation is one of the most exalted achievements in choral and orchestral music and the first choral work to be published with both German and English texts. In this performance it will be in Eng

The SPARTA Personal Safety Course is now under way. Over 20 staff from across DfT and MHCLG along with a few colleagues from the Home Office came together for the first two sessions of the SPARTA Personal Safety Course which is run by Stay Safe Global. The course is 8 one hour sessions spread over 8 weeks and covers everything from how to avoid getting your phone stolen (which is much easier than you would think) to what to do if someone tried to abduct you. By teaching you s

The SPARTA History Society continues to host a set of excellent talks. Here are a few that you can attend over the next few weeks. For full details of all the talks coming up this year get in touch with Robert Baker at robert.baker@dft.gov.uk Wednesday 11 th February Twentieth Century Seaside Architecture - Kathryn Ferry Online Talk from GMH Room 5.7 1pm and available as a Microsoft Teams meeting Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/37296345379772?p=xvBx5YNaQR7eITB6l6

SPARTA are pleased to announce that the SPARTA Personal Safety Course will start again on 27th January 2026. Stay Safe this winter with SPARTA’s Personal Safety class Stay safe this winter with the help of SPARTA. SPARTA are proud to announce that following the running of the very popular Personal Safety class in early 2025 we are repeating the course in early 2026. The course will run on Tuesdays for a period of 8 weeks starting on 27 January 2026 . It is provided by Stay Sa

The Civil Service Choir – looking ahead to 2026! The Civil Service Choir had a busy end to 2025. They performed Orff’s Carmina Burana with its famous O Fortuna opening at Holy Trinity, dazzled guests at the Civil Service Awards ceremony, and held two Christmas concerts locally in Westminster. Performing at the Civil Service awards As we look ahead to 2026, the choir will be joined by the Brandenburg Sinfonia orchestra as they perform Haydn’s The Creation on the evening o

The SPARTA History Society has a varied programme of talks with leading historians from major universities covering Ancient Rome, English Civil War, How World War Two is remembered and the Global Middle Ages. Wed 14 th January The Blood in Winter: A Nation Descends, 1642 - Jonathan Healey Online Talk from GMH 5.7 1pm In 1642, England fell into Civil War. Before this epoch-making collapse, there was a political crisis in the winter of 1641 that saw King Charles

Here is a Christmas message from the SPARTA Leeds Running group Firstly, we wanted to say thank you to everyone who got involved with the club in 2025. It’s great to have established a small running community in the Leeds office and we’re looking forward to doing even more next year. As some of you will already know, we’ve moved to having a monthly “official” run now, which takes place at 12:15 on the first Tuesday of every month. We’ll refresh the invites to these in the

SPARTA is pleased to announce that we have booked a date and ground for the 2026 SPARTA Sport and Wellbeing Day. Date - 24th July 2026 Location - We are returning to Imber Court Sports Ground, near Hampton Court. The location is only an extra 5 minute journey compared to the journey to the Kings House Sports Ground. We are really looking forward to welcoming you all to a day of fun and wellbeing in July. If you are interested in volunteering to help on the day then we would l

Last year over 35,000 people joined in CSSC's Active Wellbeing Challenges. The challenges start again in February 2026. Can you and/or your team combine to walk/run/swim enough miles to go round the world? The challenges are fun but also inclusive and completing them will give you an enormous amount of satisfaction. Why not sign up and use their challenges to help increase your health and wellbeing in 2026. Make it part of your everyday wellbeing package. Check out the CSSC w

SPARTA are pleased to announce the publication of the SPARTA Annual Report 2025. The front cover features a picture of the Swinging Mandarins band playing at the 2025 Sport and Wellbeing Day. The report gives a run down of the many activities that SPARTA has helped to put on throughout the year. You can download the report using the link below. We hope that you all like the report. If you wish to send us any comments then please do contact us at SPARTA@dft.gov.uk