Ahead of the AGM I have put together a summary of the Community Programmes activities over the last year. I hope this gives you time to take in the work that has been going on as we wish to increase our profile further within the Boroughs schools and community.
Amongst the Senior Schools our Community Coach Kieth Hughes with the backing of London Sport delivers weekly curricular sessions at Jo Richardson School, Robert Clack and Warren. In addition we have Eastbury, All Saints and Barking Abbey. The new school - Goresbrook- being built on the site of the old leisure centre is near completion and we have been invited to be part of the timetable with Rugby as the chosen sport.
With Ollie Smith now joining us in the programme we aim to enhance our Gifted and Talented pathway and hope to announce further exciting partnerships in the very near future.
Inclusion has been very much at the centre of our work and it is reflected in Kieths time at Trinity School in Dagenham and the Seabrook Centre. This also extends to our own ‘Tackle’ programme that is in conjunction with the local Met Police for young people on the edge of exclusion training and playing alongside the Police Cadets. We hope to have a Mixed Ability Rugby taster session during the summer and details will be sent out accordingly. Our Rugby Readers Literacy courses begin again in our primary schools from September.
We have been approached by the West Ham United Foundation to host a Multi Sports Day for them later this year and Kieth took a Coaches training day where the WHU coaches were mentored by Kieth and shown how to deliver Touch and Tag sessions this in turn is helpful for their own CPD. We in turn will have a presence at their events from now on. George Carey School on Thames Reach have asked the same and Kieth begins in there early July.
The Girls Only sessions on Monday evenings have been a great success and will be extended into the summer. We hope that from this we will have our first Girls team that will play as a mixed age group next season.
The Girls Give It a Go day held at the club organized with the ladies of LSE University was an amazing success with over 150 girls attending from our local partner schools and the atmosphere and energy on the day from all was remarkable. We now believe this will be an annual event.
Touch on Wednesday evenings continues to be well attended as it moves into its 3rd year at the club. We always encourage new people to come along and enjoy the sessions. It is fun, healthy and also sociable. People who were initially strangers are now friends and it is pleasing that couples of various ages come along as well as ex-players and those there for the exercise.
Our Duke of Edingburgh Bronze Award cohort are nearing the end of their course with just the overnight expedition and a few First Aid classes remaining. To mark the 60th anniversary of the Award we were invited to Buckingham Palace along with the Dallaglio Foundation who support us to receive a plaque to acknowledge Barking RFC as a DofE centre.
The Community Programme was recently nominated at the RFU Presidents Award for Community Engagement. For the second time in three years we received a Highly Commended plaque which we are proud to acknowledge in a category that had over forty entries and some fantastic initiatives. We were also congratulated by Essex RFU at the County Dinner and they kindly made a donation to our fund.
As a club we must thank Biffa, West & Coe and the Dallaglio Foundation for their various and most generous sponsorships of our work.
Fiona Miley of London Sport has become a true friend of the club and was instrumental in us being accepted as a Club Works Club last month, the benefits of this will be felt by all over the next couple of years.
Felix Sullivan of Sport Inspired continues to push our name forward at any opportunity when school work is required and their support of Kieth at Trinity and children with SEN and disability is so important to us.
For Kieth and myself I must stress though that all of these sessions, courses, initiatives and classes would not be possible without the invaluable and unseen support of Dave Lancaster, Graham Comley and Glenn Clark the Officers of the Management Committee who have provided untold hours of their own time planning, in meetings with various partners and stakeholders along with Kieth and myself and committing their efforts to help make our Community Programme something that the club can be proud of. They are not men who blow their own trumpet or look to do this for a pat on the back but I will for them and thank them personally, the whole club should.
The loss of Terry Marner was and still is a sad time for the club and I would like personally to give him due acknowledgement for his foresight and support 3 years ago at the outset of this project and up until his passing.

Neil Kersey – Community Manager , June 2016