Our Football in the Community staff have received a huge boost ahead of the New Year as the Football League Trust last week confirmed that the project has achieved the much sought after Silver Award status.
Each club that achieves the status receives £48,000 to invest into Community activities as part of the Trust's £1.72m pledge to Community schemes across the country.
Football League Trust General Manager Dave Edmundson said: "There are over 40 clubs in the Football League who have now achieved this award, and we would like to heartily congratulate them all.
"This is a wonderful indication of the new levels of impact and engagement that schemes are bringing to the communities they serve. More importantly, this demonstrates the impressive range of projects and initiatives delivered by League clubs in all four themes, and the partnerships being established in both the public and private sectors. Overall standards are high, and there is no doubt that the Trust, along with the support of all the clubs, intend to maintain this rising trend of improvement."
Co-owner Steven Pattison said: "There has been a lot of hard work carried out at all levels of the Football in the Community project here at Brunton Park, and this is the reward for those efforts.
"We would like to congratulate John Halpin and all of his staff for achieving the Silver status and for the excellent work that they do around Cumbria with the Community Project. There have been some very positive steps taken in recent years, with some very important links forged around the local community, and we look forward to continuing that good work as we go on into 2010."
Carlisle United's FITC project leader John Halpin said: "The Award demonstrates that we are following the guidelines set by the Football League Trust, and the extra funding that we will now receive will help us to develop our project even further. I would like to thank the Trustees and all of the staff at the club for their backing as we have worked towards gaining our Silver status."
To achieve Silver status, the clubs had to fulfil a range of criteria set out by the Trust.
These include:
+ An approved level of governance, including representation of at least one senior club executive and at least two strategically-chosen external trustees on the scheme's board
+ At least one themed officer working on projects relating to one of The Football League Trust's four core themes (social inclusion/ community cohesion, health, education and sports participation)
+ A minimum of a three-year business plan showing sustainable programmes being delivered across all four of The Football League Trust's core themes.
+ Evidence of how funding provided by The Football League Trust is being utilized and how it will be used to attract additional funding into the schemes
+ Evidence of how schemes are linked into local decision making groups, for example Local Strategic Partnerships
+ Evidence on how the schemes works with the Football Club on issues relating to youth development
+ A strong player appearance policy
+ Charitable status in place
All clubs must also have met The Football League Trust Minimum Charter standard.
** The main photograph shows Carlisle United operations manager Nigel Dickinson, trustee and co-owner Steven Pattison, FITC project leader John Halpin and chair of the trustees Jimmy Mitchell with the award.
