Citizenship Awards: Programme Winners
In addition to shortlisting the clubs, the judges during the first stage of the Parliamentary Citizenship Awards also chose the winners of three awards for individual programmes.
Judges at the assessment stage.
The SportBusiness CSR Award is a new award this year run in conjunction with SportBusiness magazine. It’s designed to reward the efforts of the club with the best community marketing scheme helping to generate tangible brand or business results. This year’s winner is Saracens for their two year Dance programme which has seen over 16,000 children and young people trial dance classes. The judges commended it for its ‘clear focus’, the ‘scale of its reach’ and its ability to ’meld private and public sector’ agendas.
Miriam Sherlock, the editor of SportBusiness, said:
In a particularly strong field it was the Saracens Dance programme that proved to be the most remarkable. Reaching out to those outside of rugby’s usual audience Saracens worked hard in gaining large numbers of involved youngsters in a scheme that gives positive and tangible results in increased sponsorship, ticket sales and in revenue from holiday camp schemes. As well as providing fitness and health benefits it also encouraged a strong link to the team through work with the match day cheerleaders and subsidised tickets and promotions. There is no doubt that some youngsters on this programme will become lifelong Saracens fans. A big well done to all the staff and volunteers who clearly work so hard on this.’
This was the second year for the Innovation Award, which celebrates a new community programme that deals innovatively with a community’s social (and other) needs, and for the second year Bristol Rugby won, this time for its ‘Bright Sparks’ programme. ‘Bright Sparks’ is designed to help educational establishments which have chronic issues with absenteeism and truancy. The judges were impressed by the way the programme addressed a clear need in schools, with clear goals and measurable results.
The third Individual programme award is the Impact Award, which celebrates an established programme that is clearly able to demonstrate the positive impact it’s made on a particular issue (such as health or fitness) or on a particular community. This year’s award was given to Worcester Warriors for their ‘npower Tag’ programme which is aimed at children with special needs giving them the opportunity to learn and participate in sport. The judges were impressed by the programme’s scale and by Worcester’s well-developed overall strategy for achieving community goals.
Congratulations to the winners and best of luck to the shortlisted clubs (Northampton Saints, Saracens and Worcester Warriors) will be presenting their work to the final judging panel at Parliament next week.
Club of the Year Shortlisting
It’s that time of the season again, when the clubs of the Guinness Premiership compete against one another off the pitch to show who’s making a real difference in their community. It’s the fourth annual Parliamentary Citizenship Awards! Last week a panel of judges met to shortlist the best overall clubs in the ‘Community Club of the Year’ competition, and well, I’ll let the press release speak for itself:
24 April 2009: Saracens, Northampton Saints and Worcester Warriors have been shortlisted as ‘Community Club of the Year’ in this year’s All Party Parliamentary Rugby Union Group’s annual Citizenship Awards. All three clubs were praised by judges, who included representatives from the Third Sector, for the scale, quality and focus of the work they do in their local communities with private and public sector partners.
They will go forward to a final Club of the Year ‘shoot–out’ on April 29th 2009, following a gruelling interrogation from a judging panel which will include Derek Wyatt MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Rugby Union Group, Mark McCafferty, Chief Executive of Premier Rugby, and Miriam Sherlock, editor of Sports Business magazine.
“Professional rugby union clubs are tackling the health, education and social agendas of their communities with skill and determination,” said Derek Wyatt, MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Rugby Union Group.
“The good thing is that these schemes are not just about getting kids playing rugby. Clubs are involved in dealing with crime, social exclusion and health alongside local partners and Third Sector organisations. We want charities, NGOs and others to look at rugby, not just as a tool for encouraging physical activity but as tool for solving other types of social problems.’
The winner will be announced on April 29th 2009 at an evening reception in the House of Commons.
The Parliamentary Citizenship Awards, now in their fourth year, recognise the positive impact that professional rugby clubs have on their local environment, community and society.
As well as short-listing the three clubs who go through to the Club of the Year final, the judges have made a number of other awards to celebrate different aspects of the community and social marketing work conducted by the Guinness Premiership clubs.
There will be more to share later today–so stay tuned.
Family Forwards for ChildLine
On the weekend of April 5/6, Premier Rugby will be supporting ChildLine through its new Family Forwards campaign. The goal is to get families to spend time together during a day out at the rugby, supporting ChildLine in the process.
Jonny Wilkinson lent his support, saying: “My family is really important to me and I always look forward to having time to catch up with each other, relax, and have some fun together. That’s why I’m backing the Guinness Premiership’s Family Forwards campaign to get more families to enjoy a day out at their local Guinness Premiership rugby club.”
Matches that weekend (at Bath Rugby, Leicester Tigers, London Irish, Northampton Saints, Worcester Warriors, and London Wasps) will have family fundraising activities in aid of ChildLine. You can learn more by reading the press release here or visiting ChildLine’s site here.
Responsible Holiday Drinking with Drinkaware
Just in time for the holidays, Premier Rugby has partnered up with The Drinkaware Trust to support responsible drinking. Drinkaware has a great set of tips and tools on their website showing how to drink responsibly, particularly when so many holiday parties are going on.
During week 9 of the Guinness Premiership (December 20 and 21), we’ll be helping to spread Drinkaware’s messages at matches by handing out tip cards and hosting activities to educate supporters. You can learn more about the partnership here.
Kicking Bullying Into Touch Video
Here’s a video featuring some top players in the Guinness Premiership talking about bullying and what to do about it:
It goes with this week’s launch of ‘Kicking Bullying Into Touch,’ a national anti-bullying programme from Premier Rugby and ChildLine/NSPCC.
Esther Rantzen backs anti bullying campaign
We’re launching a new partnership and anti-bullying programme with ChildLine this week, and I’m very excited about it. Here’s a bit from the press release:
Childine Founder and President Esther Rantzen welcomed Premier Rugby’s support for a new anti-bullying programme which will help over quarter of a million children to tackle bullying.
Boys and girls, aged 6 to 11, will take part in ‘Kicking Bullying Into Touch’, which will see each of the 12 Guinness Premiership Clubs and National Division One team Leeds Carnegie taking anti-bullying training into 780 primary schools over the next 18 months.
“As the daughter of a rugby player, the widow of a rugby player, and the mother of a rugby player, I am delighted that Premier Rugby has chosen to work with ChildLine. I hope this partnership will also raise awareness of ChildLine with families and raise the vital funds for our Child’s Voice Appeal so that 500,000 more children every year will be counselled by ChildLine volunteers by 2011.”
The new scheme marks the launch of national Anti-Bullying Week (17-21 November).
As well as the schools based education programme, Premier Rugby is dedicating Round 20 of the Guinness Premiership into a fund and awareness building weekend for Childline, just as the Premiership clubs did, so successfully, last season with Breast Cancer Care.
Premier Rugby’s Community Manager, Wayne Morris said: “The Kicking Bullying Into Touch programme is a great way for us to use our unique assets, namely our club brands and players, to tackle an issue that is very high on the government’s agenda. Rugby thrives on its diversity, where all different types of people come together to create a successful team. By using some of the key skills in the game, within the inclusive environment rugby generates, we believe the programme will make a real difference to the lives of young children.”
For more information about the partnership go to www.childline.org.uk.
Later this week I’ll have some of the videos that players made for the campaign.
Andy Reed MP on the value of grassroots sport
Andy Reed MP, a keen rugby supporter and judge of our annual Parliamentary Citizenship Awards, spoke last week at a Men’s Health Forum event in Manchester about using sport and sport stadia to improve men’s health. Rugby players can be great role models! Here’s the video:
Harlequins Try Learning
Just found out that last month Literacy Today Magazine ran a nice little story on Try Learning, a scheme that Harlequins are running as part of the DCSF’s Playing for Success programme. In the article, Lisa Fenaroli describes how the programme helps children improve their literacy, numeracy and ICT skills. Click here for a PDF version.
Welcome to the 2008-9 Rugby Season!
Hi, I’m Wayne Morris, Community Manager for Premier Rugby. As our new season kicks off, I’d like to take the chance to give you an overview of the community work that’s coming up…
Our goal is to put community investment at the heart of the work we do as a professional sport. Our Chief Executive Mark McCafferty gives us an overview of the community season ahead in this recent interview:
(To learn more about the sports season itself, listen to Mark’s interview on that subject here.)
We know that by engaging with local communities we cannot just help encourage kids to play rugby, but we can also make a contribution to dealing with other social problems.
Rugby is a great sport and a great way to encourage people to stay active but we think our brands, our players and our facilities can go beyond just addressing physical activity. Our programmes also set out to tackle social issues like health, social inclusion, education, and anti-bullying.
If you’d like to know more about our community policies, partnerships and programmes, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Below is an update on some of our most recent community projects:
Positive Futures
We’ve been working this summer on a few new areas, one of which has been a social inclusion pilot project with Positive Futures in London. To find out more about it, visit our Positive Futures blog post here and listen to a series of interviews with London Active Communities CEO Gary Stannett and others who participated or helped deliver the scheme.
EDF Energy Schools Programme
I am also delighted that we’re starting a new season of the world’s largest rugby-based community programme – the EDF Energy National Schools Rugby Programme, a national programme that has exposed thousands of 8-10 year olds to tag rugby. All twelve clubs in the Guinness Premiership participate; last fall the EDF Energy programme celebrated reaching 500 schools and we hope to reach 112,000 children by July 2009. (The government recognised the achievements of the programme last year when the National Sports Foundation awarded it a grant of almost £200,000.)
Wooden Spoon and the NSPCC
We have also got some interesting new programmes coming with the Wooden Spoon and the NSPCC. But more of that shortly…
Positive Futures Rugby Pilot Programme
Positive Futures is a national social inclusion programme that’s funded by the Home Office. If you’re interested to know more about why the Home Office supports this scheme and in particular the role of sport in it, listen to Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker here:
Coaker also had this to say about the programme:
“We know that playing sports like rugby can boost young people’s confidence and self-esteem which in turn helps to make them resilient to the kind of peer pressure that can sometimes lead to drugs, crime and anti-social behaviour. I welcome the contribution that London’s professional rugby clubs are making in bringing sports to deprived neighbourhoods in inner cities and offering young people an alternative.”
PRL clubs Irish, Harlequins and Saracens worked closely with Positive Futures and charity London Active Communities to deliver an eight week programme to 280 boys and girls.
© Sabera Bham 2008
The programme taught touch rugby skills and also offered drug education, leadership and personal development pathways for participants through workshops and within coaching sessions.
© Sabera Bham 2008
Listen here an overview from Gary Stannett, CEO London Active Communities, on the pilot programme:
Listen here to comments from Helen Clayton, Operations Manager Sport Action Zone, on how the pilot was received by participants:
Listen here to some of the responses from coaches and players involved in the summer project:
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About Professional Rugby in the Community
I'm Wayne Morris, Community Manager for Premiership Rugby. This blog is a place for me and the Community Development Officers from around Aviva Premiership Rugby to share the community work our clubs are doing and talk about some of the issues we're trying to solve through sport.
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