The Club Development Podcast Andrew Jenkin & Alan Russell

📻 About this episode
Our guest on this episode of the Club Development Podcast is Raza Sadiq, the founder and chairperson of Active Life Club, a charitable organisation empowering young people through sport.

Last week, Raza was awarded with the Lifetime Contribution award by Sport Scotland for his outstanding dedication to supporting young people in Glasgow through Active Life Sport and the club are also up for Scottish sport club of the year, also at the Sport Scotland Awards – not to mention a few others along the way!

Over the course of the episode, we spoke about his motivation for starting the organisation back in 1999, the development of the club since then, the governance of the organisation – including the inclusion of young people on their board and plans for their 25th anniversary next year.

🎽 Active Life Club
Active Life Club is a registered charity managed by volunteers. They offer services for young people for their social and mental well being through sports.

🎙️ About the Club Development Podcast
The Club Development Podcast is a podcast all about the development of sustainable community sports clubs across the UK. Our podcasts will cover a range of news, stories, guidance and funding information to help support clubs in their growth and development.

🏟️ About Club Development Consultancy
While Club Development Consultancy can’t guarantee success on the pitch, we can show you a route to succeed off it as one of UK's leading sport club consultants.

We know finding the time and expertise to develop, grow and generally improve your sports club can be difficult. However, help is at hand through our support.

Here at Club Development Consultancy we offer guidance and support to enable the development of sustainable community sports clubs that win for everyone.

We bring unrivalled experience having helped sports groups raise more than £50 million in funding and can typically help a club raise an extra 25% in revenue.

Find out more about our guidance and services at www.clubdevelopment.co

🤝 Partners:
We work with a range of fantastic partners who provide services and products to community sports clubs. Explore our partners below and see how they can support you in growing a winning club.

Please note, in some cases, Club Development Consultancy may earn commission from successful sign ups.

📹 Veo
Veo is the ultimate camera for team sports. Record and live-stream your matches automatically and take your game a level up. Through Club Development Consultancy, you are entitled to a Veo Special Offer discount of 20% off. To activate this discount, simply follow the link and instructions to sign up: bit.ly/3FhOpGz

💰 EasyFundraising
We’ve recently partnered with easyfundraising so your team can earn free funding whenever your teammates and local community shop online. They partner with over 8,000 online brands, so everything from everyday online purchases and mundane bills can help fund running costs, pitch fees, new equipment, and more. Sign up here: https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/register-your-good-cause/?invite=5MYL09&referral-campaign=c2c&utm_campaign=refCROtest

🤕 Insure4Sport
Insure4Sport offers specialist sports insurance for amateur sports teams covering over 60 different team based sports – from football to water polo to cheerleading.

Their flexible sports team insurance policies are suitable for teams that meet regularly and play all year round, as well as groups that only get together every so often, or play abroad.

You can benefit from a 30% discount when you sign up to Insure4Sport via our referral code: https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?s=3455776&v=2546&q=471689&r=304077

📻 About this episode

We spoke to David Fallon, Head of Development at Scottish Athletics. David is responsible for two strategic pillars of Scottish Athletic's work, facilities and clubs. We spoke about his career in sport to date and the support he and his team provide to athletics clubs across the country, including their upcoming Club Leaders Academy.

We kick off our new Club Development Consultancy podcast with a fascinating interview with Andy MacRae, General Secretary of Bealonians FC who are currently petitioning Redbridge Council to keep their club at Oakfields Playing Fields.

Bealonians FC have been in the London Borough of Redbridge since 1936 and are the largest grassroots football club in the borough.

At the request of Redbridge council, Bealonians FC have been caretakers of Oakfields Playing Fields since 2020. Looking after it in the absence of a lease, they have invested in its maintenance and provided a vital lifeline to the community.

The club have since learned that the council is planning on granting the lease to Premier League club West Ham United, which would leave Bealonians FC and its 29 youth teams (including two girls teams) and ten adult men’s teams, without a place big enough in the borough to relocate to.

The club claims that if they were to lose the site, it would have a dramatic impact on the health and wellbeing of the community - counter intuitive to a number of priorities stated in Redbridge Council strategy. It would also mean the potential privatisation of what is currently a public green space enjoyed by thousands in the community.

In this 'Club Development Scotland meets' episode, Andrew chats to Mark Covington, CEO of SNAP Sponsorship (https://snapsponsorship.com/) about how clubs can attract and develop their sponsorship offering to businesses through the platform.

SNAP Sponsorship helps clubs promote their opportunities to a wider audience while sharing best practices when it comes to negotiating and securing sponsorship, all within one easy-to-use platform.

Through our partnership with SNAP, you can benefit from 12 months of support for the price of just 11 months by using the promotional code: “clubdevelopmentscotland”. What’s more, you’ll keep 100% of the sponsorship you raise.

In this episode I talked with my colleague Alan Russell who leads Supporters Direct Scotland, to talk about the recently-published project report from their study on volunteering in football "Giving volunteers the space to make a difference".

The report is the culmination of a project which took place during lockdown, funded by SD Europe.

Read the report at https://www.supporters-direct.scot/research/giving-volunteers-the-space-to-make-a-difference/ and support our work during 2021 via https://www.patreon.com/supportersdirectscotland

We talked to Mike McInnes about his book "Man the Footballer: Homo Passiens", available from the Blizzard bookshop (https://theblizzard.co.uk/homo-passiens-man-footballer/news/). Why would human beings choose just two legs for transportation rather than three, or even four? There can only be one explanation, according to Mike. He offers a radical hypothesis, grounded by principles drawn from the evolutionary and cultural history of mankind, that humans evolved bipedalism for the purpose of playing football.

If you enjoy this podcast and would like us to do more, please consider becoming a patron of Supporters Direct Scotland. By making a small contribution towards SD Scotland, you can support our work helping community groups and sports clubs across the country. Sign up at www.patreon.com/supportersdirectscotland