Building our community support    

Hello, and can I say I’m delighted to be writing for you for the first time since I joined John and Richard as part of the Board team. I’ve followed the Darlo since 1973, and it’s a privilege to be able to offer help in support of the club.

One of my first official duties for the club was to represent the Board at a workshop run by the National League Trust. The National League Trust was set up in order to provide financial support to projects that have the goal of supporting, developing, and improving the delivery of community programmes. This is made possible by the generous support of the Premier League and the Professional Footballers Association, who are contributing £1.2m per year for three years to fund development projects.

As we move up the league pyramid, the football world imposes greater expectations on us to work in our locality away from the football pitch giving help where it’s needed with funds provided by other charities that support football in the community. Believe it or not, our Premier League (and Championship J) north east neighbours have charitable Foundations that between them allocate several millions pounds into their respective communities. We are a long, long way from that, but little acorns produce great oak trees!

As I’m sure you know, Carol Charlton, Vice President of the club, recently agreed to work with the Board to develop our Communities, Schools and Youth Policy, by looking at how we can grow our interaction with the local community in Darlington and the surrounding areas. Andrew Alton has already done a great job with local schools and groups in his matchday community programme over the last four years, so hopefully we can build on those strong foundations.

We think this sort of activity will be critical as we move back to the town, and as we look to re-engage with the local community at every level, and for all ages, building on the fantastic fan base that we have at the moment, and ensuring that our supporter-owned club is sustainable for the future.

Carol and I attended a workshop run by the National League Trust held at FC Halifax Town at the end of last month. There were several other National League clubs represented, including York City, Chester City, Wrexham and Barrow. (Remember that awful day at Barrow when we feared it would be the last ever Darlo match…. the support we took over on that bitter day, both in weather and general terms!).  During the course of the workshop, representatives from the National League Trust talked to us about the type of community projects that they are able to fund, and how we set about applying for financial support. I have since spoken with representatives from several other clubs, all of whom have successfully applied to the Fund to finance community projects.

As you all know, as a supporter-owned club, (officially we are a “Community Benefits Society”), one of the main reasons for our existence (beyond running our beloved Darlo) is to promote association football and other recreational sports in Darlington and the surrounding areas, and to strengthen the bonds with the local community.

The National League Trust makes grants from £2000 to £20,000 for clubs in our league, the only wrinkle being that we need to find 25% of the money from other sources. Projects that have received funding include activities like Community football development, encouraging volunteering, helping disability groups to play sport, healthy eating and lifestyles, activities for older people, and working in partnership with schools.

In order to ensure that the money goes to the right places, we will in time be setting up a charitable trust, independent from, but linked to the football club. Again this will be done with support from the National League Trust.

In addition to the work already done by Andrew, it would be great to be able to identify other potential community projects that we could fund. It is probably best that we start small in the first instance, given we would have to find 25% of the money to fund a project ourselves. But the starting point has to be some great ideas. So if you have a community project in mind, that you think could do with some support from the club, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Carol by emailing her at carol.charlton@darlingtonfc.org.

That’s it for my first thoughts From the Boardroom. I look forward to seeing you at Heritage Park for the time being, and then at Blackwell Meadows. After the break for the FA Cup, we are looking forward to hosting the players, directors and officials from Stalybridge Celtic. So enjoy the game, onwards and upwards, and COYQ!