Bury Football Community trust has a new team manager, new Trustees and more importantly new ambitions.

Ex Burnley player and Sport in the community manager Paul Weller has just joined us to take part in a major shake up and redirection of the football in the community programme.

The Bury FC Community trust has been in existence over 20 years and is part of a national scheme that includes most professional football clubs.

The Community trust is a self-funding, non-profit making organization and offers a wide variety of activities to the local community.

Our aim is to promote Sports related activities in a fun, but structured atmosphere and at the same time encourage participation in physical exercise to pursue a healthier lifestyle.

With full support from the football club, working with the Football League Trust, the community trust provides a vital link between the local community and the football club. Working together we can make a difference.

The Sport in the community team are successful at delivering coaching and competitions within schools, holiday activities and birthday parties and the new Community Trust aims to do much more including the development of a wide range of initiatives and programs around play activities, inclusion, community cohesion, health, supporting the grassroots game, provision of opportunities for girls, women and disabled players and coaches as well as using football, sport and other recreational activities combined with educational activity to address a range of social issues.

In particular the Team aims to address inequality and work with any individual or group that feels or is currently excluded from football.

Paul Weller comes to the Bury scheme after great success on and off the pitch in Burnley and he brings a wealth of ideas and unrivalled enthusiasm for the challenge here. Paul was a product of the youth team and a first team regular for eight years. He became Burnley's Community Manager in 2006.

He will be working with a great team who already have been successful in delivering a broad programme of activities throughout Bury and running high quality courses for and with a range of partners including schools, youth service, connexions, Princes Trust, NHS Bury, Bury Ladies and Girls Football Club and Bury Council's Sports Development Unit.

The Trustees
As part of its new ambitions the Board of trustees is also expanding and it brings together representationfrom the Club and FA together with local expertise and experience in sports development, business and commerce, marketing, and,public health.The Trustees provide governance to the programme and due to their breadth of backgrounds are able to spot and open up new possibilities for the programmes development. The Trust Members are

Jill Neville, Jackie Veal, Colin Bridge forth, Andrew Rodgers, David Lund, and Chairman Iain Mills

We are actively talking to people who may be able to join the Trustees and enhance the skill we already have.

From Bronze to Silver to Gold?
This year the Football in the Community Team aim to be celebrating the accreditation by the Football League Trust of the Silver Award.

To achieve this Trusts must have met The Football League Trust Minimum Charter standard and fulfil a range of criteria.

These include:

·An approved level of governance, including representation of at least one senior club executive and at least two strategically-chosen external trustees on the scheme's board

·At least one themed officer working on projects relating to one of The Football League Trust's four core themes (social inclusion/ community cohesion, health, education and sports participation)

·A minimum of a three-year business plan showing sustainable programmes being delivered across all four of The Football League Trust's core themes.

·Evidence of how funding provided by The Football League Trust is being utilized and how it will be used to attract additional funding into the schemes

·Evidence of how schemes are linked into local decision making groups, for example Local Strategic Partnerships

·Evidence on how the schemes works with the Football Club on issues relating to youth development

·A strong player appearance policy

·Charitable status in place

These foundations are now firmly in place and we have set our sites firmly on the Gold Award over the next two or three years.

In doing so we will make sure that we do not take our eye off the ball as our central concern is our commitment to providing high quality football coaching to local youngsters, whatever their ability. Our aim is to encourage children, young people and adults to enjoy playing and watching football at all levels, to improve the image of the game, to engage and embrace all sections of the community and also to improve the behaviour of players and spectators.

We aim to develop closer links with the communities we serve and provide everyone with opportunities to participate in sport, football and other activities that contribute to the positive development of our communities.

Our new web site is now under construction and can be viewed on www.buryfc-community.co.uk

Contacts for Bury FC Community Trust

Tel: 0161 797 5423
Email:info@buryfc-community.co.uk

Finally, Bury FC in the Community, The Trustees, Paul and all his staff would like to wish Alan Knill and our team all the best for the 2009/10 season and look forward to seeing us all in division one next season