Video from the Parliamentary Citizenship Awards
Here’s Paul Farrelly, MP for Newcastle-upon-Lyme, Secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Rugby Union Group and a judge of this year’s EDF Energy Parliamentary Citizenship Awards, discussing his thoughts on the ‘Club of the Year’ winners:
And this is Louise Poole, Head of Sponsorship at EDF Energy and a judge at the awards, sharing her thoughts on the awards and how difficult it was to choose a winner.
And here’s Tanja Rasmussen, Community Investment Campaign Director at Business in the Community and a judge at the awards, talking about the community work she saw.
Saracens and Bath share Community ‘Club of the Year’ Title
On Wednesday, representatives from Bath Rugby, Saracens and Newcastle Falcons all came to Portcullis House at Parliament to give presentations on their community work in front of a panel of judges in order to determine which club should be Community ‘Club of the Year.’
This whole process started last week, when a panel of assessors shortlisted Bath, Saracens and Newcastle for Club of the year and also determined the winners of the Innovation and Impact Awards, two new awards this year for individual programmes clubs are running.
The assessors included representatives from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), Department of Health, Positive Futures, and the CSR Department of BT Wholesale. They reviewed materials that clubs submitted through Business in the Community’s Clubs that Count tracker.
They awarded Bristol Rugby with the Innovation Award (for an innovative new programme started in the past 12 months) for its Inferno Programme, which tackles social inclusion by teaching rugby (and life) skills to young offenders at HMP Ashfield. Bath Rugby and Sale Sharks were also highly commended for their Language Through Sport and School of Hard Knocks programmes respectively.
Newcastle Falcons won the Impact Award (for an established programme able to demonstrate the positive impact it’s making on its community) for its Touch Rugby programme, which gets 950 adults active each year (40% of which are female, 35% of which haven’t done any form of physical activity in past year). Bath Rugby was also highly commended for its Wilts / Sportsmatch Girls Rugby Programme.
And then for the main event this past Wednesday: Bath Rugby, Saracens and Newcastle Falcons all gave their presentations before the judging panel, which included Derek Wyatt, Paul Farrelly, and Andy Reed, MPs from the All-Party Parliamentary Rugby Group, as well as Louise Poole, Head of Sponsorship at EDF Energy, Tanja Rasmussen, Community Investment Campaign Director, and Mark McCafferty, Chief Executive of Premier Rugby.
The judges were impressed by the scale and scope of the community work they saw, and by the partnerships and investments the clubs have been making in their communities. In the end they awarded the ‘Club of the Year’ award to both Saracens and Bath Rugby—Saracens for their sheer professionalism and the way their community foundation that has continued to grow and innovate, and Bath for how far they’ve come in such a short time period and the way they put community work into the ethos of the club.
All the awards were presented at an evening reception at the House of Commons.
From left: Gordon Banks and Hannah Pirnie from Saracens, Louise Poole from EDF Energy, Jimmy Deane from Bath Rugby
Up next on the blog I’ll be posting the Powerpoint presentations from the finalists and video of the judges so you can hear what they thought in their own words.
Louise Poole on Rugby
It’s ‘awards season’ for Premier Rugby, both for the guys on the field (GP Final May 31!) and for our club community officers, who have submitted their community work to be reviewed for this year’s Parliamentary Citizenship Awards. The judges decided the ‘Club of the Year’ programme earlier this morning (but I’m not allowed to reveal the winner just yet!). Until then, here’s a video of Louise Poole, the Head of Sponsorship at EDF Energy and one of the judges for club of the year, talking about EDF Energy’s commitment to Premier Rugby clubs and programmes.
Cystic Fibrosis Trust vs. Lords & MPs at Twickenham
Had the chance to watch a cracking charity match at Twickenham last week between a team representing the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and the Commons and Lords RFC. The Cystic Fibrosis Trust team beat the Lords and MPs 17-7. The CF Trust team included Joshua Jones, a singer with Cystic Fibrosis (right in the photo below), and RFU Elite Rugby Director Rob Andrew was honorary captain of the MPs and Lords (left in photo).
Learn more about the Cystic Fibrosis Trust here; there’s also more about the match on the RFU site here.
Hard Knocks from the Sale Sharks
The Rugby Club programme on Sky Sports recently concluded a six part series that showed how rugby skills from the pitch helped a group of men in Liverpool become more employable. Sale Sharks ran the ‘School of Hard Knocks’ scheme in conjunction with Creative Training; at the end of the intensive 16 week programme, ten of the participants had found jobs (and the remaining five are still actively seeking employment). Participating in sport helped these men become more confident, motivated and enthusiastic. While many Premier Rugby programmes focus on schoolchildren, this programme is a great example of the good sport can do for adults as well. You can watch all six parts of the series on the Sky Sports website by clicking here.
Partner of the Month: Business in the Community
Business in the Community (BITC) is a charity backed by the Prince of Wales with the goal of helping businesses improve their social impact. BITC works with all kinds of large and small businesses and offers a variety of programmes that encourage responsible business practices and corporate responsibility. One annual programme they run, Clubs that Count, is aimed at professional sports clubs. Premier Rugby clubs are participating for the third time this year.
Clubs that Count allows sports clubs to audit their community work and consider how socially responsible business practices are incorporated throughout the club. Clubs complete an online tracker, and then receive a report from BITC which gives them an idea of how they compare with their peers and shares best practices among clubs so they can improve. We spoke to Ian Redpath, Project Manager of Clubs that Count, about what it is and how it works.
Rugby in the Community launches!
Welcome to Professional Rugby in the Community. This blog is about the community work undertaken by Premier Rugby and the clubs of the Guinness Premiership. Premier Rugby operates community schemes on a national level, including the EDF Energy National Schools Rugby Programme (one of the most comprehensive rugby programmes in the world), as well as regionally through the clubs. Our goal is to be the most successful professional sport in the community area. Through this blog, we want to show how we’re helping our partners (government departments, charities and NGOs) accomplish governmental objectives related to sports participation, health, education and other areas. We want each professional rugby club to be the epicentre of its local community, and hope that the examples and best practices we share on this blog will generate debate and further discussion. Please feel free to comment on any of our posts, and if you have any questions please email me.
Bath Rugby Opens Playing for Success Centre
Last month Bath Rugby officially opened its Rugby Education Centre (REC) in rousing style with a Haka from students at Fitzmaurice Primary School in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. Students from the Bath region, including those at Fitzmaurice Primary School, use the REC to improve their literacy, numeracy, confidence and self-esteem through rugby in the exciting environment of a rugby stadium. The Centre is run as a part of Playing for Success, an initiative from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).
In this video, deputy head Paula Dawkins talks about how bringing students to the REC makes them more motivated to learn and more confident back at school, and student Kyle gives a speech about how going to the REC has helped him improve his attitude:
Read more about the event on the Bath Rugby site here and the Fitzmaurice Primary School site here.
Tindall celebrates 500 schools in EDF programme
In January Gloucester and England player Mike Tindall visited Minsterworth School in Gloucester to celebrate the 500th school taking part in the EDF Energy National Schools Rugby programme. The programme has exposed tag rugby to thousands of 8-10 year olds, and will reach 112,000 children by July 2009.
Mike said: “I’m delighted to be helping to celebrate that 50,000 children have been introduced to rugby through the EDF Energy National Schools Rugby Programme in just a year. The enthusiasm of the youngsters at Minsterworth School really does show the benefits of such a comprehensive programme.
“We need to bring rugby to new audiences and to give children a taste of the game at an early age. Tag rugby is a brilliant way of getting kids into rugby and helping them get fit and healthy. When you provide quality coaching and the right equipment, and have teachers and children who are keen, then you stand a really good chance of laying solid foundations for the future of the sport.”
Read more about the visit here.
How rugby union clubs work within schools
Last year the Guardian’s Education section ran an article about what clubs in the Guinness Premiership (particularly Saracens, Newcastle Falcons and Bath Rugby) are doing to promote healthy lifestyles in schools. You can read Ariana Green’s piece here, and download the podcast (MP3) by clicking here.
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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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