After the milestone month of September it was back to reality again, but October was another successful month. Here are the new totals and the highlights:

Total items of kit donated = 7,910
Total items of kit donated in 2023 = 82,390
Total items of kit donated since 1998 = 1,016,042

Hertfordshire FA Award

At the Hatfield boxing up session on 7 October we were delighted and surprised to be presented with a Special Recognition Award as part of the 2023 County Grassroots Football Awards. Many thanks to Herts FA CEO Karl Lingham and to Communications Manager Stuart Mugford for including KitAid in this year’s awards .

It is great for KitAid to receive recognition for all of the hard work carried out by everyone. I can now retire my soapbox and update our trophy cabinet!!

Congratulations to Ben (and Sandeep)

Many congratulations to both Ben and Sandeep on the birth of their first baby, Caleb Benjamin Wildman, who arrived on the 5th October. Many of you will know Ben who is the Regional Coordinator for North Kent and South London, as well as a regular boxing up attendee.
Ben is also managing our Linkedin and YouTube posts in between bottle feeds and catching up on sleep!
Good luck Ben and we look forward to seeing Caleb joining you at Hatfield in a few years time.

FOMO Malawi Football & Netball Bonanza

Following the 25th Anniversary Celebration we were very fortunate to receive some donations from supporters. Many thanks to the Taylor Family, Tony Smart and to Hertfordshire FA.

We have decided to pool the donations, holding some amount back to meet running costs, but with the majority used to sponsor the Bonanza. We have sponsored this before and some of us have witnessed the wonderful event, which this year will be held between Christmas and New Year.

More than 1,000 children from the 14 Orphan Support Centres in Mulanje will take part in both football and netball tournaments. It is a wonderful event which the children really look forward to, as they are given treats, special food and prizes. There will be regular updates on our sites each day so do look out for the film clips.

Our sponsorship of the Bonanza also helps FOMO as they are struggling to cope with the increased food prices as well as more children coming to the Centres as they are so hungry. This is largely a result of the cyclone which devastated crops in the south of Malawi and pushed up food prices.

25 for 25 Challenge

A very big thank you to the six supporters who have taken on a challenge and between themselves, have so far raised £2,200.

We still have two months to go as the Challenge was intended to run across the whole of our 25th Anniversary year.

Can we reach our target of raising £2,500, either with another couple of participants or by sponsoring Karen Austin, who is still completing her challenge of running 25 x 5km runs. Karen has so far completed 22 runs and her final run will be in Auckland, New Zealand on Christmas Eve.

If you are able to sponsor Karen, here is a link to her Just Giving page
https://trk.justgiving.com/f/a/TJk-tTZMiMlFhr1oRNrVwQ~~/AAME8QA~/RgRmRjbFP0T2aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuanVzdGdpdmluZy5jb20vcGFnZS9rLWF1c3Rpbi0xNjg0MjU0NTE3NjE1P3V0bV9jYW1wYWlnbj1sY19mcnBfc2hhcmVfdHJhbnNhY3Rpb25fdHJhbnNhY3Rpb25hbF8tLV9wYWdlX2xhdW5jaGVkXy0tX2NhbXBhaWduJnV0bV9jb250ZW50PTY2ZTI0YTAwLWJhYTctNDM5Ni1hYzhiLTdlYTcwMmI2NzkwNCZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWVtYWlsJnV0bV9zb3VyY2U9cG9zdG9mZmljZSZ1dG1fdGVybT0xNjg0MjU1MTcxOTE2VwNzcGNCCmRixbFjZK5rKiNSFGthcmVuYXVzdGluMjZAbWUuY29tWAQAAAAD

KitAid Promotional Flyers

As we have now reached the One Million milestone I have started to update promotional material and the first is the A5 Flyer. Next week I will receive 2,000 copies and if you would like some please let me know. Next on the list is the 2024 Thank You certificate and I am also working with Carole on getting some quotes to print 1,000 copies of an updated version of the 25th Anniversary brochure.

I am hoping to share an exciting announcement about a special fundraising walk soon, which should be a great event for those who enjoy visiting football grounds in the London area!

I think that is all of the news for October and as ever, many thanks for all of your support. KitAid couldn’t exist without it.

Best wishes
Derrick

Hi all,

I hope you are all well.

September was an incredible month as we celebrated 25 years as well as reaching the One Million items of donated kit milestones. Certainly a month to remember. Here are the main highlights and latest news.

Total items sent out in September  –  6,230

Total items sent out in 2023  –            74,480

Total items sent out since 1998  –      1,008,132

25th Anniversary Celebration

Now the dust has settled I think we can look back on a wonderful event where everything came together and the months of planning were rewarded. Thanks to everyone who played their part in making this happen and for those who were unable to attend I will attach a copy of the 25 Year brochure given out on the night and a link to our new YouTube Channel which includes some of the presentation films shown on the night.

The Auction and Raffle raised £3,000 and we received a further £1,000 in donations from supporters, which is fantastic. Thanks to everyone who donated prizes.

The press release which followed the celebration was published by the Watford Observer,the Non League Paper, the Bucks Free Press, Watford FC, Reading FC and some shared media outlets. It is a shame none of the National press picked up on it, especially as we had Gareth Southgate as the main lead item, but it might be worth issuing another release at the end of the year. Many thanks to Peter Rennison for managing the release along with PRPR and Rachel Williams.

A final thank you to our sponsors, Salford Van Hire, Family FC and Five Star Trophies, who all made the event possible.  Roll on 2028!

Boxing Up – Saturday 7 October – Hatfield

Thanks to those who replied to the invitation email and we currently have 20 attendees.  If you are still to reply and would like to join us please let me know, as 25 is the ideal number to make things run smoothly. There will be special 25 Year cupcakes and an historic group photo with the One Million banner to look forward to.

New Linkedin and YouTube Channel

Many thanks to Ben W for setting up a new Linked in page. It currently only has 33 followers so let’s get this to 100+ by the next monthly update. The link is https://www.linkedin.com/company/kit-aid/?viewAsMember=true

Ben has also set up a new YouTube Channel to keep all of the wonderful KitAid films together.  As well as the films shown on the Celebration night, there are some others which are really great. You may not have seen some of them and I can recommend watching them on a dark Autumn evening!  The link is via https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMH99146mSle0ag2Gq11Nug

International Sports Convention – March 2024

KitAid has been invited to attend the above prestigious event next year and I have also been asked to speak on an environmental sustainability panel. It is held at Spurs White Hart Lane stadium over two days, with over 1,000 attendees from across Europe. We have been chosen as one of the charities and attendees will be asked to either bring kit or to donate kit after the event. It is attended by all of the major brands as well as governing bodies such as UEFA and FIFA. The press launch announcing our attendance is due to happen this coming month.

Cambridge United kit collection

Many thanks to Ian D and Matt T for managing a great kit collection at the CUFC v Port Vale game recently. A van load of kit was donated by the Club, the Foundation and supporters and Ian is kindly storing this for us at his house until we have space in the containers. Cambridge United is a new club to KitAid and due to the great work by Ian in developing the relationship, they are looking to be long term supporters.

The invitation to attend the Internal Sports Convention came about as the chairman of ISC is a Cambridge United supporter and read about our work via the kit collection.  It goes to show how things can develop from events.

25 for 25 Challenge

Many congratulations to Barrie N on completing his challenge of visiting 25 football grounds across Essex. Barrie also raised over £500 and gained an amazing amount of online publicity throughout the challenge. He also made a lot of new friends at each Club many of whom will continue to support us with end of season kit donations.

Congratulations also to Peter D on completing his swimming challenge and raising £300. I think the only other challenge that is ongoing is Karen A’s running challenge. and I will get an update for next month.

With all of the challenges combined we have now raised £2,200.  Wouldn’t it be great to get this to £2,500 in the three months we have left for the 25th Anniversary year.  Who is up for the challenge? Each person who has taken part will receive a beautiful glass shield from our good friends at Five Star Trophies.

Hatfield 5k Business Park Run

Once again KitAid was the chosen charity for this event and we received £900 from the race entry fees. This is all due to the hard work and support of Steve Thake and Michelle Plain from Affinity Water, who host the event and nominate KitAid to the event organisers. Many thanks to Steve and Michelle for your great support.

The end bit!

I always like to finish the monthly update on a high and here is another lovely story. There are many tasks which take place over the year to make KitAid such a success, and some inevitably go unnoticed. One example is how Jeff S drives from Potters Bar to Hatfield every fortnight to collect parcels which have been delivered to the Affinity Water office. He opens each package and where there is a letter or email address included, he then posts off a Thank You certificate to the kit donor. He received the following thank you

You’re most welcome [in respect of the donation], I’ll certainly endeavour to send some more kit down as and when I find it, and in the meantime would like to thank you and your KitAid colleagues for all your efforts and sterling work – knowing what ‘new’ kit meant to me and my children, I have no doubt your efforts help to put many smiles on many faces of grateful recipients worldwide.

Thank you Jeff, this is what makes KitAid so special to so many people.

Thanks to everyone for your tremendous support and I look forward to seeing some of you on Saturday morning at Hatfield.

Derrick

Hi all,

I hope you are all well and your optimism for the new season and your team continues beyond next month’s update!!

July has been an incredibly busy month in terms of organising things, but for once, the amount of kit dispatched has dropped, with less time available for visits to the containers.  However, we are now so close to the finishing line in terms of reaching 1,000,000 donated items, the tape is just a hair’s breadth away! Here are the latest totals:

Items of kit donated in July                       1.690 

Items of kit donated in 2023                  65,940

Items of kit donated since 1998        999,837

Items of kit needed to reach 1M                 163

The champagne is on ice for Friday 8 September, and the celebration evening.

25th Anniversary Celebration

Tickets   We have received some late cancellations which means we do have a few tickets available for anyone who would like to join the party. Please let me know if you would like to attend or increase the number of friends in your group and we will allocate them on a first come basis. I have handed out and posted as many tickets as possible and most of you should now have received them. If not, please drop me an email with your postal address.

Story Book   The 25 year history of KitAid has been written, photos have been sourced and Carole (Parsons), our designer, now has the tricky task of getting it to fit within 20 pages and to make it look good. Thank you Carole, I am sure it will look great when it is given out to everyone on the night.  There will also be copies for everyone who cannot attend as well as an online version.

Raffle/Auction   Thank you to everyone who has donated a raffle/auction prize. We could still use some more, especially for the auction. Does anyone have access to tickets for either a sporting event, a show or a music event which they could let us have?

Joining Details   I will send out an email closer to the date to cover all of the basic details such as parking, dress code, gate entry, taxis etc.

The music, guest speakers, running order have now all been booked and we are looking forward to having a party to celebrate 25 years of KitAid and the incredible 1,000,000 milestone.

25 for 25 Challenge

Many congratulations to Matt (Tutton) on completing his challenge of running 25 laps around the pitch at Hitchin Town FC before their friendly game against Watford FC Academy. It wasn’t an easy task and Matt completed the 8km run in under 45 minutes and well before kick off time! Thanks also to Ian (Dell) who ran with Matt for some of the time to keep him motivated.

If you would like to sponsor Matt, his Just Giving page is still open and it can be accessed via the stories about his run on our Twitter/FB and Instagram sites and here!

Thanks also to Karen. Peter and Barrie who are pressing on with their challenges.

To date all of the challenges have raised £1,400 and it would be great if we could get this to £2,500 by the end of the year. The challenge doesn’t have to be a physical one, it could be anything really, as long as it involves 25 of something.

Belfast/Airdrie visits

Self funded flying visits were made to Belfast and Airdrie a couple of weeks ago to the Ballysillan YFC Football Camp, which we sponsored, and to Diamonds in the Community in Airdrie.

The Ballysillan visit was more poignant this year as we were able to pay our respects to Grace, and to present a glass trophy in her memory to the team. 74 boys and girls attended the football camp and had a brilliant week, which they will remember for years to come. More importantly, they all now have access to the wonderful support the BYFC team gives all year round.

The visit to Diamonds in the Community was also inspiring as we were shown around their centre and were able to get a good insight into all of the different support activities they offer. As well as being the main collecting hub for Scotland for KitAid. We even managed to get to the Airdrie v Dundee match to see the Diamonds win.

There will be presentations by both charities at the 25th Anniversary celebration, and they will both be inspiring and moving.

E-banking

KitAid will soon be entering the 21st century as we move into the heady world of online banking!!

Many thanks to Sean (McGuigan) and to Mark (Smith) our past and present Treasurers for patiently sitting through long meetings with Santander, as we had to prove we weren’t international money launderers! Fortunately we passed all of the tests and will soon be able to file the cheque book away and pay people instantly.

Watford FC away shirt

Many thanks to the commercial team at Watford FC for setting up a scheme where fans can receive a 20% discount for a new away shirt if they donate an old WFC shirt to KitAid. The scheme was agreed without us applying or having any contact, which is a sign of how KitAid is respected by the Club.

Thank you to everyone reading this update and to all of our volunteers. We have achieved so much in the past 25 years and it would not have been possible without your support. This really shows in the 25 Year story book and I look forward to sharing it with everyone soon.

Many thanks

Derrick