Earlier this week I was absolutely delighted to welcome the Swindon Town Community Foundation to Westminster, where they were awarded the English Football League Community Club of the Season Award for League Two at the EFL Trust Community Awards. A very proud moment for Jon Holloway, Shane Hewlett and their team.
The Awards are a great way to recognise the fantastic charitable and social work of the 72 members of EFL’s network of Community Club Organisations and to highlight their excellent projects, clubs and players.
The STFC Community Foundation is a wonderful organisation which provides a number of important projects which support the local community. A huge variety of people benefit from the programs provided by STFC Community Foundation, including people with disabilities, young and elderly people, and people from many other backgrounds.
The Community Foundation’s work with refugees and asylum seekers was particularly praised, and I was very pleased to meet Yacob who has been supported by the program. Working with the Harbour Project and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust there is a weekly football session for refugees and asylum seekers. The football sessions help them maintain their physical and mental wellbeing, as well as helping them to build on their communication skills and forge a strong support network within the local community.
In addition to this, the Community Trust has worked with homelessness charity Threshold to provide football sessions, and wider support, for the homeless. The Community Trust has also joined together with Swindon Down’s Syndrome Group and national charity DSActive to provide people with Down’s Syndrome the opportunity to be active and enjoy sport.
What makes organisations like the Swindon Town Community Foundation so important and impactful is their ability to bring together different charities and community groups, so that by working together they can create innovative initiatives and identify people who can benefit from them.
It is great to see that Swindon Town Community Foundation is being recognised and celebrated for its amazing work, and I am wishing them all the best for next week when the overall winners in each category are announced.
There was also positive news on employment figures this week with 30 million people in employment, a record high. Here in North Swindon an extra 530 people in work over the last 12 months, with unemployment down to just 2.9%, one of the lowest in the country. This is absolutely key as our recovery recovers from Covid and the impact of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
There was also fantastic news this week that so many parents were given their 1st choice of primary school for their children. More than 95% of parents got their first choice, and 99% got one of their top 3 choices - this is one of the highest success rates in the country! The Schools Admissions team do a fantastic job processing all the preferences.
This high success rate is a credit to the Government and Swindon Council for making sure schools are built before new developments are completed and not afterwards - which was sadly the case with the last Labour Government where I remember the regular angry public meetings where local parents were denied local choices. Good luck to all the children starting their education adventure in September!
