“The purpose of our grant application this season was to help us with our work with our two nominated charities for this season.
Every season we try and work with a charity but this season and with us coming back to the City Centre we wanted to make more of the charities we work with and offer them more exposure than just a bucket collection.
Our nominated charities this season are two small local Welsh charities who would benefit greatly from our support.
The first one we hooked up with was ‘Remember to care’. Their vision is:
‘To provide communities, groups and individuals with the resources to develop and grow in positive ways, empowering them to be the best they can’.
And their mission statement is –
‘To raise awareness of the availability of services, that can facilitate the creation of new structures and practices to increase personal well-being, moving individuals forward in a positive way and to deliver comprehensive programmes to vulnerable individuals and groups utilizing the expertise of our well- being professionals’.
The second charity is Cancer Research Wales – a small Welsh charity and return all their donations to people and research in Wales only.
We invited both of our charities to an early game at Caerau FC Ely Cardiff to ‘launch’ the Boards we had printed for them and to announce our work with them. The Boards were on view for all of our home games at Caerau.
Our normal kit colours are Red for home games and Gold and Black for our away games. But for our Charity games we purchased a Pink and Black kit and had it printed up with the charities logos.
During the season we moved grounds to the Amdani Hi Girls and Women’s Football Centre, Ocean Way and had the charity boards on show there too. This gave both charities more exposure as the venue is open to around 1600 girls and women every week from a number of clubs and of all ages. They are also there for the days that the facility is used for boys and men’s football – 2.5 days a week use at the facility. So each charity has full exposure for 7 days a week.
Each of the charities were invited to work with us throughout the season and each charity also had one home game to call their own and make an income from their day with us.
We also promoted R2C by attending a workshop as a club and promoting the evening on our media sites.
Cancer Research Wales chose a different route, and in addition to the above they also chose to maximise their connection to our club via their own media sites.
I have attached some photographs of our Pink kit – printed up with the Charities logo. We have also logoed up warming up gear for players and coaches and medical gear.
This season we had a very good F A Cup run so the charities logos were available for the extra three games we were drawn at home.
In addition to these charities we also did a Charity day for the Turkish and Syria Earthquake and topped the amount taken with a top up from Club funds similar to the same as our nominated charity dates.
Next season we will keep our current Pink kit which means the charities will enjoy another season with the logos on our kit and also a board pitch side. We will also chose two new charities and add their logos to our kit.
The grant received from the 1910 Trust allowed us to carry out this important work and we were pleased to spread the word for these very important charities.”
Photos taken by the Cardiff City Ladies FC team.
