Q&A: Albion in the Community

FirmBalls, the organisation that helps businesses network through football, is staging its annual corporate tournament at the Amex Stadium on May 23. The event is being hosted by Albion in the Community, the charity set to benefit from the day’s event. Mark Barkaway, fundraising, PR and communications manager at Albion in the Community, explains what its work is all about. 

What is Albion in the Community? 

We are the official charity of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club and we work with around 46,000 people across Sussex each year. 

What is the charity’s purpose? 

 We aim to improve the health, wellbeing, and education of people living in Sussex. We do that in a variety of ways, but football and its popularity are central to almost everything we do.  

What sort of things do you do? 

Where to start! The area of our delivery most people probably know is our football sessions for people with a disability. We currently run 30 such sessions every fortnight, attended by upwards of 450 people.  

Elsewhere, our schools team works with 148 local schools, using football-themed lessons to engage young people in their academic studies. We also run after school clubs and work with school staff to improve PE delivery, encouraging more young people to be physically active. 

As a charity we target our delivery where we believe it will have the most impact and where it is most-needed. A great example of this is our Premier League Kicks programme, which provides free football and mentoring to more than 1,500 young people living in areas of deprivation. Not only do we help these young people get active, we also encourage them to complete qualifications with the charity, while delivering regular workshops on subjects like anti-racism and road safety. 

We also work extensively with adults who are either long-term unemployed or facing other barriers to employment, such as mental health problems or historic substance misuse – all aimed at boosting their chances of finding paid work. 

These are just a few examples of our work – but hopefully it provides a good illustration of the impact we are having. 

How important is fundraising and tournaments such as FirmBalls? 

Incredibly important. Quite simply, we would not be able to reach the number of people we do without our fundraising.  

For example, it costs us between £2,500 and £5,000 a year to deliver one of our football sessions for people with a disability, meaning the £8,300 raised by the FirmBalls tournament last year was equivalent to funding two or three of these sessions for an entire season. 

How do you fundraise? 

In a variety of ways. We get tremendous support from the local business community and, of course, Brighton & Hove Albion fans.  

Our corporate fundraising is vital for the charity and we would encourage any local business looking for a good cause to support to consider us. We really do reinvest the money we receive back into the local community. 

We also hold regular fundraising events, including a European cycle challenge, a one-day cycle ride through Sussex, and a quiz night.  

You are hosting a fundraising lunch with Bobby Zamora. Tell us about that. 

It is taking place at the Amex Stadium on May 23, immediately after the FirmBalls corporate tournament. The event will give people a chance to hear from Bobby and some of his football friends about their careers and time playing for Brighton & Hove Albion. It will be a brilliant event and we still have places. Tickets cost £60 each, or £550 for a table of ten. More information is available from: www.bobbyandfriends.eventbrite.co.uk 

Website: www.albioninthecommunity.org.uk 

Twitter: @albioninthecomm