Morecambe FC Community Sports is a registered charity which works alongside Morecambe Football Club and operates with its own board of trustees. We have a team of 10 employees who work to deliver a diverse range of activities across the district. We work hand-in-hand with Morecambe Football Club, the local community, schools, NHS and police.
We are part of the Premier League and the Football League Trust, and deliver work across 5 key themes of Education, Health, Sports Participation, Inclusion, and Disability.
Community Staff
This last year we have spent considerable time and money upskilling our staff to unsure they meet the standards need for Premier league funding and continue you meet the recommendation of Lancashire county council to delivery PE in schools, All our staff have safeguarding and 1st Aid qualifications and enhanced DBS/CRC checks along with a minimum of Level 2 qualifications in Multi-sport and football. All staff have either completed or are working to the 1st for sport level 3 in delivering PE in schools the FA.
Delivery
We provide coaching sessions within the school day and also afterschool clubs for a range of schools across the Morecambe, Heysham, Carnforth and Lancaster area. We travel as far as Ingleton, Wennington Hall, Leck Fell, Yealand, Silverdale and Kendal. The sessions in the school day adhere to a curriculum timetable and all afterschool sessions are structured. It’s not just football that we deliver: we’re currently offering football, basketball, multi-skills, dodgeball, circuit training, tag rugby and athletics sessions too. We work with both primary schools and secondary schools, including Heysham High, Lancaster Girls Grammar, Our Lady’s Catholic College, Morecambe High and Ripley St Thomas Academy. At the moment, we deliver sessions in around 30 schools a week with various sessions taking place. We have also worked with the University of Cumbria and Lancaster University Volunteering Unit.
GymStars
With backing from the NHS, we have provided a unique programme for 4 to 8 year olds called GymStars. For the GymStars sessions, we bring a mobile gym with specially designed and sized equipment to primary schools, nurseries, etc. for a 6-week block of sessions for children aged 4-9. These sessions aim to improve levels of fitness, agility, balance and co-ordination, with children monitoring their results over the 6 weeks so they can actually see the progress they’re making.
We are responsible for co-ordinating annual football tournaments for school children, such as the Football League Kids’ Cup, the Girls’ Cup and the Easter field tournament at Giant Axe, home of Lancaster City FC. The winners of both the Kids’ Cup and the Girls’ Cup go on to compete in regional and then district finals; with the grand final being played at Wembley Stadium. We have taken local children from Halton St Wilfrid’s and Slyne-with-Hest schools all the way to victory in the Wembley final.
Extra Time
In additional to the work we undertake with local schools, we are very active in the wider community too. We visit adult residential care homes several times a week and deliver fitness and well-being sessions. We also run a social and exercise club for over 50s at Globe Arena called Extra Time (Fridays, 10.30-12.00), which includes refreshments, board games and bingo, as well as armchair exercises and games using Xbox Kinnect and Wii consoles. At the Northwest Football Awards 2013 Extra Time was “Highly Commended” by the judges.
We have also worked alongside the Prince’s Trust on their 12-week team programme, providing sessions on healthy eating and fitness as well as visits to the ground and the chance to interview the first team players. We ran education and mentoring programmes with the Trust, and provided opportunities for young people to develop their personal skills. Students from the Prince’s Trust have also undertaken work experience with us and this has proved a pathway to employment for some of them.
On Friday nights our coaches work at local high schools delivering free Kickz football sessions for up to 18 year olds, in conjunction with Lancashire Constabulary. This takes local young people who are at risk of offending and engages with local groups of young people in the area, we were successful with a funding from the crime commissioner to fund the sessions.
Positive together
Positive together funding was successful from Lancashire sport. The project operates as two mutually supportive strands:
To reduce anti-social behaviour and offending behaviour in the most deprived wards of Lancashire amongst 10-25 year olds (key sponsors: Lancashire Police Crime Commissioner and Housing Associations).
To engage with new Inactive groups in IMD wards where there is little opportunity to take part in Sport and Physical Activity, 10-25 and limited number of 25+(key sponsors: Sport England and Housing Associations).
To consult with people locally to ensure that the activities provided meet their needs.
To develop local role models and volunteers in the community who, with support will be able to sustain participation in sport by leading others to play sport promoting volunteering in a range of ways and all linked to local sports provision and events in the local community.
Build relationships between Housing Associations or Neighbourhood Management Organisations along with community providers – to engage with people locally and who are prepared to deliver on Housing Estates using local facilities where possible.
We also work with MENCAP, delivering multi-skills sessions at their local centre. Morecambe FC has signed the Deaf-friendly Football Club pledge and Lancaster & Morecambe Deaf Children’s Society train with our coaches. In addition, we run a weekly session for children with autistic spectrum disorders on Tuesday evenings.
StreetGames
StreetGames is a sports charity that changes lives and communities. They do it by supporting a network of projects which give sports and volunteering opportunities to young people in disadvantaged communities across the UK. Doorstep sport is StreetGames’ delivery method, whereby we bring sport close to the home in disadvantaged communities at the right time, for the right price, to the right place and in the right style.
‘Us Girls’ is a StreetGames programme aimed at increasing and sustaining women's sport participation in the most disadvantaged communities of England
We have again been successful with funding to run to door step clubs, the 1st was run for young people 14 to 25 as a sport club in the evening with 2 venues one on Friday nights, and the 2nd under US GIRLS for girls 12 to 25 we had a regular exercise session in the community building gym and fitness session on the 3g, which were all well attended and popular. We have applied again for funding for this year but we will need to find a venue to run this.
Premier league girls
We started the Football League Trust Female Football Development programme in 2013; offering free football coaching for girls at the Globe Arena and also working with a number of local schools to deliver girls football during curriculum time and also after school. Last season we were able to further develop this by being successful with a funding bid from the premier league and becoming part of the PL girls programme with 8 satellite centre based in around senior school and the community.
The programme has two main objectives:
To increase the number of women and girls playing football on a regular basis
To increase the opportunities for women and girls to develop skills and confidence and progress within the pathway as a player, coach or official.
The programme achieves this by providing a fun and informal environment, allowing participants to progress at their own pace and make friends at the same time.
Premier league (Primary stars /Reading stars)
Primer stars focus is on developing the whole child improving their physical literacy, enhancing their learning and teaching relevant life skills and behaviour by helping teacher to deliver great PE and sport and increasing children’s enjoyment ,participation and skill in sport and other physical activity. Enhancing children’s understanding and interest and confidence in English and Maths. Supporting young people to take part in sport outside of school. Reading stars focuses on under achieving children in year 6 with a 10 week reading programme with skills and fun reading and competitions to engage and confidence build.
In addition to the above, we continue to run our core programme of activities for children, including soccer schools throughout school holidays, (13 per year) weekly Tuesday Night Football Sessions and our Saturday Morning Club.
On matchdays, we co-ordinate group visits and children’s birthday parties, as well as match day mascots, and deliver the clubs commitment to kick it out, know the score and prostate cancer, plus others.
PFA
We look after the club commitment to the PFA. We record player visits, send case studies and news articles to the PFA over the season we also send the seasons end of year report and record of all visits whether community or commercial and comply with the football leagues days of action.
