March was a good month for KitAid with our first full boxing up session for over two years and some helpful publicity. Before sharing the highlights I would like to welcome our new Regional Co-ordinators to the team, Chris Blakeley from Carterton and Naomi Owen from Stoke on Trent.
Monthly totals
Total items sent out in March = 11,325
Total items sent out in 2022 = 26,655
Total items sent out since 1998 = 847,607
Countries supported – Malawi, Ghana, Ukraine, Cape Verde. Zimbabwe, Gambia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone.
Premier League Today TV
At the boxing up session we were joined by PL TV who sent a presenter and a cameraman to record the “journey of a shirt” story. They filmed every element of the session, interviewed a number of volunteers with the focus being given to a Watford FC shirt which was presented by Barry (Freedman) to Rhoda from the charity Fafali.
Rhoda then arranged for the shirt to be delivered to her brother in Accra, Ghana, and he has filmed a message holding the same shirt, with children from Fafali, all wearing Watford kits.
The production team at PL TV will now edit the film and it will be broadcast later this month. Unfortunately it will not be shown in Europe, but they have promised to share the finished clip, which I will include a link to in the next monthly update.
Annual Reviews
Hopefully you will have received your printed copies of the new Annual Review. I posted 30 packages but to save on postage I have held back sending them to those of you I will see in the next few weeks. This is our key report to explain to people what we do and although I say it myself, I think it is a great read and it looks professional.
Here is a link to the report and it would be great if you could share this with your friends, contacts etc
https://1dlvs22b360y2pxdsc25i32x-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/kitaid-annual-review-2022-paginated.pdf
Ukraine support
We were able to donate 15 boxes of Club Wembley fleeces and teddies to two separate deliveries of humanitarian aid, one via ex Watford and England legend Luther Blissett and the other via Chesham United/England Supporters.
We also donated hundreds of pairs of socks to the New Hope Trust in Watford, 12 boxes of unbranded sports clothing to Care4Calais and some bags of scarves to Barrington Court homeless charity in Hammersmith.
I think this reinforces our message that “It is more than just a shirt…” and we are really pleased to support these appeals/projects.
Non League Day
We are very grateful to Aylesbury Vale Dynamoes FC from the Spartan Premier League for hosting a kit collection on our behalf on Non League Day. Supporters were given free entry to their game if they donated kit or clothing for Ukraine. A large amount of kit was donated and one of the organisers spotted 15 classic retro Wycombe Wanderers shirts from the early 1990’s. As he is a journalist for the Bucks Free Press he persuaded the paper to host an auction of the shirts and this raised an incredible £1,100 for KitAid.
A very big thank you to James Richings from the paper for making the collection and the auction happen. Thanks also to local Regional Coordinator, Chris Turton, for liaising with the Club and for collecting all of the shirts.
Lorraine Worsley Carter MBE
We would like to offer our congratulations to Lorraine on becoming the new High Sheriff for Manchester. We met Lorraine in Manchester a couple of years ago as she was helping former Ambassador Mary HD with some public relations work. She has followed our progress since the meeting and will act as an Honorary Representative for KitAid in her time in office. Lorraine will be officially inducted as High Sheriff later this month, after which time, we will make a more official announcement.
Well done Lorraine, and we look forward to supporting you throughout your tenure.
KitKing
KitKing from Loughborough have been very supportive of our work for some time. After many telephone discussions and cancelled meetings due to Covid, I finally met up with the owners and staff at their Head Office. I also gave a presentation to the team, who were really interested and keen to get more involved.
We are looking at ways of working more closely with KitKing and hope some of their team can support us in other ways than solely providing kit.
As the partnership develops we will share the developments.
25th Anniversary – 2023
As time seems to fly I thought it would be good to start raising the profile of the forthcoming 25th Anniversary, which officially is July 2023, so just 15 months away!
A couple of questions which I would really appreciate your involvement in.
To recognise the milestone would you prefer a black tie dinner as we did for the 10th and 15th anniversaries or a less formal buffet style evening as we did for the 20th anniversary??
Would you like to be involved in helping to organise the event? (Not compulsory!)
Please do let me know your thoughts as it is important we involve everyone as you are the people who have made it happen and without you we wouldn’t be celebrating 25 years of KitAid.
Have a great month and stay safe.
Derrick
on behalf of the KitAid Trustees