Over the past few weeks, we have spent a lot of time reviewing our delivery from the past year and pulling together all the information to demonstrate our impact and all of the support we have given to our community.
With all that took place in 2020, lockdowns and government restrictions, we knew that our usual delivery would be impacted and this would reflect in the numbers in comparison to the impact previously recorded.
For example, in 2019 we worked with 25,911 different people in our town, across all our provision, we delivered 13,766 sessions through the year and had 214,182 engagements in our activities.
I have talked a lot about how well our team regrouped, refocused and continued to find ways to work with our community and in 2020, we were still able to work with 17,136 individuals, despite restrictions on how and where we could deliver. We still delivered 8021 sessions and we were able to introduce new ways to deliver and reach new people through virtual channels. With virtual and face to face delivery, we had an astonishing 503,372 engagements in our provision.
In 2020 we employed 65 members of staff, of which 77% live on the Fylde Coast and a further 163 volunteers supported our programmes.
We had some amazing achievements through the year and ask everyone to download a copy of our 2020 Impact Review : A Year like no other.
It’s not often we get time to take a step back and genuinely take a look at our impact, but some of the case studies included in our report; Tyrese, Penny, Zach, Keira and Caprice, Euan, Jess and Roman and James, are prime examples of life changing differences we are making to local people. I hope everyone that takes the time to read it will genuinely feel a sense of pride to see how your local professional Football Club is supporting local people.
I would like to take this chance to thank the full staff team and our Board of Trustees for all of their commitment and dedication to our causes. Also, thank you to our partner organisations (both funding partners and operational partners) for their link in and desire to work together. We have a lot more we can do to help even more people.
I would also like to thank the Board, players and staff at Blackpool FC for your support and also the clubs fans and the local community for your link in and support. Collectively we can do some amazing things and a great example of this was our Festive Fundraiser, which we hope can become an annual support for our young people that need it.
Whilst the start of 2021 has been challenging, we have some very exciting opportunities to develop and continue to implement. We are already thinking beyond this too.
