Collection of stuff to help get us into the community

[Mad Dog]

Because I’ve got no life and I was bored this Sunday, I’ve been doing some digging on stuff that may be useful to either get funding, get people down or just using the facilities as a start. Some of these things may have little value, others may provide great opportunities that we could use.

A lot of them involve grassroots and are community orientated and if we can imitate or utilise some of them, they might be a great way to get us into the community and create a feel good factor around the club.

All I ask for is an open mind when looking at this stuff I’ve posted and to see if some of this could be used for the good of the club or experimented with. The old regime shot down too many ideas without even looking at them.


http://fifasoccerblog.com/blog/raise-mo ... ball-club/

Lets just clear something up here.

The thread was intended to show how much fun/excitement can be had from supporting your local team. Not to turn into slagging me off for a light hearted thread!

Manchester United is indeed my team (i was born there and my dad was a season ticket holder before anyone starts!!!)

I was purely pointing out that you can support your local team and enjoy crazy afternoons watching them. I am 250 miles from old trafford so it's not like i can just pop down and watch them on a Saturday afternoon.

I'm not critising anyone for who/how/why they support who they do, but purely saying that taking an interest in your local team can help them financially etc (Ayr United are now a part time team after due to financial difficulties over the last few years)


A good cup run for them is excellent and a last minute equaliser will bring in much needed funds to the club. Usual attendance is 1500 at an Ayr home game - yesterdays game 9150.

I really enjoy supporting my local team.

Although going for many years, I became a season ticket holder about 5 years ago, and get just as much enjoyment out of attending these games as watching the top teams on TV. If I was brutally honest I would have to admit that my interest in the televised game (ie EPL and La Liga) has started to dwindle over the last 5 or 6 years. I used to watch every game on Sky, but now I miss the majority of them through my own choice. Only really watch the big ties in the EPL and La Liga, along with most Madrid games. CL is also still watched regularly but this competition is also losing its interest for me gradually.

And why the loss of interest? Well I think that the money in the game and the attitude of the modern player is not helping. They have all become mercenaries and most have no great loyalty any more, except the money. Most only perform sporadically, and the diving, cheating, feigning injury is also a big factor. And the game is so stop-start these days too, with refs hardly letting any tackles go. Its becoming harder and harder to watch.

As for the local game, well my team would have a lot of local players, many from the city, so they have more pride in what they do. They play with more heart and you can see that winning means more to them than the top pro's. OK so the quality is not up to the same level, but the passion is.

If more people began to follow their local team and ignore the billion pound businesses that now pass for football teams then the world of football would be a lot healthier.

From:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/sport/90 ... -team.html

A few schemes run by Stevenage:

http://www.sbfa.co.uk/football_in_the_community.htm

A wobblers initiative (I thinking from a money making scheme rather than on the field ;) ):

http://www.zenrepublic.com/downloads/NT ... elease.pdf
A number of grants we may be able to explore if we can build up partnerships with local kids football clubs (the money is used to fund training courses, events over the summer):

http://www.clubwebsite.co.uk/community/ ... unding.pdf

http://www.sportsaid.org.uk/

Capital Projects Scheme
The Capital Projects Schemes supports organisations that wish to build, develop and/or refurbish facilities in order to sustain and/or increase participation.
Projects eligible for funding may include grass pitches drainage/improvements; changing rooms; floodlights; artificial turf pitches pavilions and clubhouses.
Max grant Value: 90% of overall project cost.

For people over 55, we can apply for grants that include increased participation in sports:

http://www.footballfoundation.org.uk/ou ... xtra-time/

Ahead of the game scheme. Helps raise awareness of football in the community. Community schemes at clubs on this scheme were awarded £20,000 towards doing this:

http://www.footballfoundation.org.uk/ou ... -the-game/

From Newcastle United to Brighton & Hove Albion, football clubs up and down the country are offering you the chance to boost your reading, writing and number skills for free.

This will likely involve grants, hopefully money to sustain long term. We do something very low key like this at the moment but maybe we can expand it further with the co-operation of local education authorities and use it to get people coming to the site:

From:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov. ... G_10037433

A couple of gems may be in here. Mainly involve advice:


http://www.nbleisuretrust.org.uk/page426.asp

This offers a number of links that offer help on getting volunteers involved:

http://www.nbleisuretrust.org/page134.asp

‘Want to Play FC’ is aimed at disabled children in Nottinghamshire get into football. It may be something that we could look into and if worth exploring raise with Northants FA:

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/news/ ... ticle.html

Aviva scheme:

http://www.aviva.co.uk/cr/communities-l ... hemes.html

Aviva works closely with the communities in which it operates through investment in a variety of localised schemes. Where possible, we try to provide opportunities for employees to get involved with these schemes through our volunteering programme. Local activities include:

Canaries for the Community, which is a Norfolk initiative with Norwich City Football Club and forms part of our overall sponsorship of the Aviva Community Stand. Each year, community work is undertaken involving Norwich City fans and Aviva staff helping at a non-league football club and assisting in a local area of need.

Paying for it is a new schools programme developed by independent education charity Citizenship Foundation and Aviva which supports and enriches citizenship teaching around economics and finance. Forty eight schools have been twinned with local Aviva offices in 12 key areas, where over 300 Aviva volunteers will use specially written resources to work with small groups of young people on different economic citizenship topics such as health, money, environment and public spending.

I know, wrong area of the country, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk to Aviva and see if we could get something out of it, even in a small way.

Northampton Town Football Club are delighted to welcome lifelong supporter Dayn Freeman to the club as the club's new Cashback scheme co-ordinator.
Dayn will contact and visit schools, local football teams, work places and charities on behalf of the club to implement a Cashback scheme, allowing groups to keep 25% of all money raised for their own purpose.
This is how the scheme works and will help raise vital funds for any organisation, be it a school, local football club, charity, office social club, cubs, scouts, brownies or any other group!
The Cobblers are happy to offer you as many tickets as you require for home league matches. You can sell these to contacts, friends, partners, associates - in fact the more the merrier, and you keep 25% of the income for your purposes!
It's that simple.

This builds upon the 50/50 scheme, we expand it to sports clubs, kids football teams, youth centres, charities. This means it wouldn’t matter when the shop is open, just buy the tickets from your school!

http://www.fcbusiness.co.uk/news/articl ... ck+scheme+

This site has a bit more which may be worth exploring, including initiatives at other clubs when announced:

http://www.fcbusiness.co.uk/home

An article from the University of Leicester, probably not of much use, but may be worth a bit of a read:

http://www.le.ac.uk/so/css/resources/fa ... /fs11.html

More about getting kids to read via football:

http://www.tompalmer.co.uk/articles/Cil ... rticle.pdf

Following on from the above, a bit more here:
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/reading_the_game/

I know it says Premier League sides, but with libraries being closed, maybe contacting and discussing options with the literacy trust may bring something that we can benefit from as well as getting more kids reading?

Site helping to get sponsorship for grassroots football from businesses:

http://www.sponsorfootball.co.uk/about_us.html

It could be a way to get businesses to get their foot into the door via the grassroots method, with may moving onto the club itself. We may be able to find some interesting contacts through this.

http://www.ideashelper.com/fund-raising-ideas-48.htm

Football in the Community Scheme:

http://footballeducation.co.uk/Document ... tation.pdf

[Cotty]

you've obviously given this a lot of thought and time MD - I'm sure someone at the club could investigate further, or invite you in to assist the directors with exploring some of these possibilities.

[Mad Dog]

you've obviously given this a lot of thought and time MD - I'm sure someone at the club could investigate further, or invite you in to assist the directors with exploring some of these possibilities.

Maybe. I am thinking about dropping an email about this stuff, although it looks all over the place so an email may put them off. I may just ask the club to look at the thread and see what they think.

It really is a collection of stuff. I notice now that the first few bits are about why people don't support their local side, which is what I was originally having a look at, so not useful to someone at the club.

I think with the summer coming up, increasing the use of our facilities, if through some of these schemes and the funding they provide, is a must.

[Formic]

Wasn't there mention at one of the forums (or the Trust Meeting) that we were about to appoint a new Community Officer ? Did this happen ?

I'm not sure if we make enough of the links we could have with the various courses and facilities offered by the Sports Centre - there must be some merit in marketing to those who visit there, but who aren't regular visitors to the games.

Unfortunately with our remaining home game being on a Bank Holiday we may struggle to get too many people in on a "trial basis" in order for them to commit to following the team next season.

[Mad Dog]

Wasn't there mention at one of the forums (or the Trust Meeting) that we were about to appoint a new Community Officer ? Did this happen ?

I'm not sure if we make enough of the links we could have with the various courses and facilities offered by the Sports Centre - there must be some merit in marketing to those who visit there, but who aren't regular visitors to the games.

Unfortunately with our remaining home game being on a Bank Holiday we may struggle to get too many people in on a "trial basis" in order for them to commit to following the team next season.

The good thing about a lot of the stuff is that there are things which could be started/undertaken in the summer with no games on.

Initially they would be more towards getting people on site, which if built up during the summer gives the club greater links with the community, even in a non matchday capacity. We gain from publicity and a positive feel for the site. It's about good PR, doing the right thing which may entice people to at least start using the site. If we get them into the habit, it would have a knock effect.

I feel some of the stuff would get a ball of positivity rolling (remember a fair bit of this comes with funding) that we could then take advantage of when the season comes and maybe even carry on some of these schemes when our facilities are not in use to keep those community links going.

[StaceyH]

Wasn't there mention at one of the forums (or the Trust Meeting) that we were about to appoint a new Community Officer ? Did this happen ?

We had someone come into assembly last Monday to promote the Club. Unfortunately I wasn't there so can't give you full details but maybe it was the new guy. It certainly is a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned, particularly as we can see the Club from our playground!

[Mad Dog]

Wasn't there mention at one of the forums (or the Trust Meeting) that we were about to appoint a new Community Officer ? Did this happen ?

We had someone come into assembly last Monday to promote the Club. Unfortunately I wasn't there so can't give you full details but maybe it was the new guy. It certainly is a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned, particularly as we can see the Club from our playground!

Good news. I remember you saying a while back that the club hadn't got to your school yet. These things take time as the arrival of someone at your school has shown (anyone got time in the week to volunteer and speed up the process?).

I think a piece about visiting local schools on the official site and in the local press will do the club's reputation wonders at this point in time.

[Pigman]

Knowing who our new community officer is (I won't say on here as I'm not sure of the reasons it hasn't been officially announced :? ) I'm surprised it hasn't been given a much, much higher profile by the club. One of my colleagues is working with him on a project in an area of Bedford (I work in the area of Community Development for those that don't know) so things are starting to happen.

[SouthRushdenJFC]

Is there any reason why he's started in Bedford?, aside from there are more people.

The squad I coach has twenty kids in it, none of them are R&D supporters and only one attends games on an irregular basis.

We have upwards of 100 kids training on a Saturday, I doubt I see five R&D shirts. I'm sure some of the kids don't there is a club with a great stadium just down the road.

I've posted about this before but there is so much more the club could do that would cost nothing but time and effort.

I'll give you an example, last week there was a tournament for Junior Schools at Whitefriars for Y5&6 kids after school. Whitefriars, Denfield and Alfred Street sent teams, Newton Road and South End, which is the biggest Junior school in town didn't. The reason was they don't have anyone who can run it.

The tournament was good, some good football being played and all the kids enjoying it, but think how much better it could have been if each school's team had been coached by an R&D player? And how many of those kids would badger their dads to take them to the next game at Nene Park where they could watch the player who coached them and how they have an affiliation with play?

[Mad Dog]

Is there any reason why he's started in Bedford?, aside from there are more people.

The squad I coach has twenty kids in it, none of them are R&D supporters and only one attends games on an irregular basis.

We have upwards of 100 kids training on a Saturday, I doubt I see five R&D shirts. I'm sure some of the kids don't there is a club with a great stadium just down the road.

I've posted about this before but there is so much more the club could do that would cost nothing but time and effort.

I'll give you an example, last week there was a tournament for Junior Schools at Whitefriars for Y5&6 kids after school. Whitefriars, Denfield and Alfred Street sent teams, Newton Road and South End, which is the biggest Junior school in town didn't. The reason was they don't have anyone who can run it.

The tournament was good, some good football being played and all the kids enjoying it, but think how much better it could have been if each school's team had been coached by an R&D player? And how many of those kids would badger their dads to take them to the next game at Nene Park where they could watch the player who coached them and how they have an affiliation with play?

You need to email the club about this, especially events coming up like this. The community initiatives are in it's infancy at the moment and the club can't pick on everything. I would email Andy Shutlar ( andy@rd-fc.co.uk ) about any up and coming events that you know of and how you feel that the club may benefits. Look at DiamondsForever's school. It took a while, but it was visited in the end. We can't moan if the club are not made aware or given enough time to do something.