Rooted In The Community.....

Re-establishing Partick Thistle as a valued and integral part of the community is one of the prime aims of the JagsTrust. Our elected member of the Club Board, Kieron Dempsey, has led the way on many initiatives as the club’s Community Director. We hope to provide you with further details over the coming weeks and months, but Kieron reports below on his excellent efforts to date:-

Our community programme has almost run full circle with the anniversary of the Trust’s first event A League for All coming in June. The programme has been running for about 18 months and as a joint initiative with the club for six months beginning November last year.This programme is designed to benefit the community and to create closer links between the Jags Trust and Partick Thistle Football Club with regard to Community Development projects and issues.

Partnerships

We are pushing ahead on a number of areas of our engagement programme and initiatives. Currently, we are in partnership or in the process of making partnerships with a number of groups including: Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH), Glasgow Old People’s Welfare Association (GOPWA), C.O.P.E. (Caring Over People’s Emotions), GYP (Govanhill Youth Project), WestGAP (West Glasgow Against Poverty), Street League, Show Racism the Red Card, Scottish Refugee Council, Glasgow City Education, Glasgow City Asylum Support Group and two Glasgow colleges of education. These will soon be joined by North Glasgow Mental Health and hopefully Glasgow University. In tandem with these we are now working with Glasgow Rugby on some joint initiatives.

Groups/Initiatives

We have been working with a number of groups including: the elderly, youths, school children, ethnic minorities including Roma and Asian kids and adults; NEETs (not in employment, education or in training); socially excluded groups including the homeless, disabled, people with mental health issues and, soon, those with addiction problems.

Initiatives include: ASSIST Training, Anti bullying, Learning Centre (North and South), Literacy and Numeracy, Healthy Heart, Health and Well being, food and hygiene, A League for All, Roma centred integration football team, and, possibly, a female football team.

Politically

We have had a presentation at the Scottish Parliament, had ourselves mentioned in the Commonwealth Legacy Debate, mentioned again by both the chairman and CEO of SAMH in their speeches launching their new national initiative to combat mental health issues in the 3 in 4 Project (which is an initiative based on preventive care). Finally, a visit from the Sports Minister took place at Firhill on 2nd June.