Leisure company vows to support charity

Salop Leisure based at Emstrey, Shrewsbury, is a Friends of the Community partner, which sees the company pledge £1,000 a year to support the work of Shrewsbury Town Football Club’s official charity partner.

The charity, which is independent of the football club, is self-funded and needs to raise £1 million a year to deliver 39 different programmes which support people of all ages in the community.

Driven by a mission to get everyone active and engaged by using the power of sport, the charity’s motto is: Achieving goals and realising potential.

The charity runs football sessions for children, walking football sessions for adults, an Extra Time Group to encourage people of all ages to be active and football coaching and reading and writing support in more than 20 schools.

Other programmes include a cancer rehabilitation service in partnership with Lingen Davies Centre at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, BTEC and foundation degree courses, a National Citizens Service, a mental health support service, Heads Up and reminiscence therapy sessions for elderly dementia patients.

The charity currently has 20 corporate partners and Ceri Nicholls, partnerships and events manager, is keen to increase this number.

“The money that we receive from businesses, like Salop Leisure, helps us to build our impact in the community,” she said. “These gifted donations go into an unrestricted fund which enables the charity to grow in the way that we want across Shropshire.

“Without businesses jumping on board and helping us, we wouldn’t be able to do the wide range of work that we do. Salop Leisure was the first business to sign up as friend three years ago and the company supports us in so many other ways.”

Based in a temporary ‘hub’ building located alongside Shrewsbury Town’s Montgomery Waters Meadow Stadium, the charity is hoping to secure funding to build a permanent two storey headquarters and to provide a full size 4G football pitch.

In addition to its Shrewsbury base, the charity has a South Shropshire hub at Ludlow Football Club and is hoping to establish a North Shropshire hub at Lakelands Academy in Ellesmere.

Its next fundraising event is Step Up for Mental Health on September 28 when the charity plans to climb up and down every one of the 1,570 steps in the Montgomery Waters Meadow Stadium. Anyone from the age of six years upwards can support the event but they must pay £10 to register and raise a minimum of £20 in sponsorship.

Salop Leisure’s chairman Tony Bywater said: “We are delighted to be a corporate partner of Shrewsbury Town in the Community which does such important work in the local community and across Shropshire.

“It would be great to see other businesses in Shrewsbury and across the county pledge their support for this dynamic charity.”