Merry Christmas from KitAid!

Happy Christmas from all at KitAid, below is a list of some of our 2013 highlights! 

  • 25,400 items of kit sent all across the World in 2013 (at no expense to KitAid)
  • 725 footballs, sets of goalposts, goal nets and 1,000+ Match Attax cards also delivered
  • We have now sent out 220,000 items of kit since KitAd was set up in 1998
  • We celebrated our 15th Anniversary in style with 200 supporters and Graham Taylor OBE
  • We were featured on Sky Sports News in August and also interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live
  • We featured in many different newspapers across the UK as well as some African media
  • We sponsored the brilliant Ballysillan YFC football camp again as well as projects in Lesotho, Uganda and the Gambia
  • We were the chosen charity partner for the Hertfordshire FA, Evo-stik Northern Premier League and Spartan South Midlands League
  • We have strengthened our relationship with the University of Herts and Middlesex University
  • We have continued to receive fantastic support from PUMA and other manufacturers such as Great Branding

We would like to thank our Patron Graham Taylor OBE and all of the clubs from the entire football pyramid who have donated so much kit in 2013.

Happy Christmas from the KitAid team

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15th Anniversary Dinner Celebration

I am deighted (and relieved!) to have secured the £8k sponsorship we needed to go ahead with the black tie 15th Anniversary dinner on Thursday 17 October. Thanks to Affinity Water, Mouchel, Homeserve and DST Global Solutions who all agreed to be joint sponsors. We can now start on the hard work of pulling the event together but I am sure it will be a fantastic event and surpass our 10th Anniversary celebration held in 2008.

The event is designed to recognise all of your hard work and it is a celebration of what you have achieved, so I really hope you can make it. We will be able to confirm the venue soon and we will ask for a special room rate for guests, so please do make a note of the date as it would be a real shame if you cannot make it. A chance to put a face to a name in a really relaxed enjoyable atmosphere, KitAid party time!!

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Ballysillan Belfast Trip

As you know, we have sponsored the fantastic Ballysillan football camp again this year and for the last 4 years I have travelled over to Belfast for the final Friday and made a weekend trip of it.

If we do the same again this year it will be on 18/19/20 July. Even though I have been so often I always come away full of admiration for the fantastic work Peter Thompson and his team do and always inspired, touched and in awe of something I see or hear at the footy camp. It is also an opportunity to see what KitAid is about closer to home. Rather than just hearing it from me I asked Lesley Giddins to write a few lines, as she went on the trip last year. Here are her comments

"I was aware that KitAid had sponsored the Ballysillian tournament for a few years and had wanted to go in 2011 but just couldn't make it. In 2012 I decided to go along and my husband came along for the ride. We'd never been to Belfast in spite of living in the North West for most of our lives. We had a day in the city centre sightseeing, dinner with Derrick and a full day at the tournament. To any KitAid coordinators considering going along – I couldn't recommend it too highly. The tournament is great fun, the coaches and boys welcoming, and some pretty good football skills on display. We had a guided tour of the area and the Youth Centre, and some pretty eye opening stories of life for some young people in Belfast. I was very convinced that this is a good cause for KitAid to support.

We managed to squeeze in a tour of the political murals (of both sides of course), a chat to a few locals, and finished with dinner with the leaders of the youth group and tournament. They were truly inspiring and a lot of fun. I certainly plan to go back."

If you would like to be a part of Ballysillan 2013 could you let me know asap as flights will start to increase in price beyond April.

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The FA/Herts FA

I had an excellent meeting earlier this week with Darren Bernstein from The FA and Nick Perchard from our charity partner, The Herts FA. The meeting was to design a plan for KitAid and The RAF charity, Taking football to Africa, to receive surplus Umbro branded training kit from the 50 County FA’s across the country. Basically Nike will take over the contract from Umbro and all of the old kit needs to be disposed of in an environmentally sound way.

We will use our couriers as much as we can but there may be the need to call on you guys if there is a county FA office close by and they do not have a lot of kit to collect. I should find out in May which offices we will be asked to collect from so I will know more then.

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Evo-Stik NPL Easter KitAid amnesty

It starts today! Hopefully with the national radio coverage and the good PR we have been given by Dave Watters from the league we should be receiving a load of kit from clubs all across the north of England. Once we know who has collected for us and how much, we will be in touch if we need any collecting from a club near to you.

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Easyshopping.org

We’ve set up an account for KitAid with Easyshopping and we now need to try and promote it to our supporters to encourage them to register.  It is really easy (hence the name!) and could be beneficial for us, as if you choose KitAid as your preferred charity we will recive a payment for every online purchase made with some really big organisations, i.e. Amazon, Argos, Tesco and hundreds more well known names.

If you do shop online please register and please encourage your friends to do the same.  It has been a very slow start, despite some publicity across Affinity Water, our web and twitter sites.

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KitAid Grants for small charities

We have been holding some funds as "ringfenced" for special projects and this week we were able to let the charity partners know they had been chosen.

We decided to make the grants to small charities we know who can make the money go a long way and they will use it for projects which match our purpose.

The chosen projects were:

  • Ballysillan Belfast Football Camp £550
  • Malealea Sports Committee, Lesotho £900
  • TAFCE – The Gambia £600
  • MPiD – Uganda £600

The response from the charities has been fantastic and I think we all wish we could be Bill Gates for a day and donate much more.

KitAid is not really about fundraising and we were fortunate to receive separate donations from the Charlie Fidler Memorial Fund and Spalding Grammar School

It is nice to be able to support projects that will leave a lasting legacy

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Fantastic Feedback

We always ask for feedback from the charities we partner with and in most cases we receive it. Sometimes we receive an email or letter which really stands out and makes you realise the power of what we do. The following did exatly that and the fact that our shirts have probably allowed 2 boys to attend a school which they could not previously afford to do, is quite humbling. Please see the following note received by Ben (van Nes) from one of his projects.

"We greatly appreciate your contribution to facilitate our programme of empowering youth through sports in Kenya. The provission of football kit from KITAID has made our dream come true.This could not have been possible without the KITAID team that has worked tirelessly to make a difference in people`s lives. The impact of football has been felt across the whole county of Bumula in Kenya. Youth are nolonger idling around shopping centres and being involved in antisocial behaviour.

Within the last 2 years 32 youth teams have been issued with football kits in Bumula county. 2 students who had been dropped out of school for lack of fees have been admitted in two sports oriented schools with free education bursaries. Their talent was sported by school sports representatives who attended one of our annual football events. These events are used to gather communities and mostly targetting youth to alleviate idleness and antisocial behaviour by engaging and empowering them on issues of health,unemployment, identity and self worth. This is done by organising interactive workshops and video clips.

5 primary schools received football uniform and it was very exciting when whole school Activities were paralysed,all class lessons cancelled and parade assembled just to receive the uniform. They had never had any uniform since the foundation of their schools which dates back as far as 1965.(Since Independence) They always played with one team removing their shirts (topless ) during their inter- school competitions, now they cant wait for the season to beggin. All this was made possible by contribution of Kits from KITAID. This years event which takes place in August will even be bigger and better, involving nearly 20 teams across the county and other 10 different sports activities"

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Herts FA

You may remember we entered into a charity partnership last year with the HFA.

Apart from Louisa attending some of our boxing up sessions we haven’t really had the time to launch or develop the partnership further but we are about to do so.

Louisa has arranged for all of the County Cup Finals (25 in all) to be made KitAid events and we have designed a poster which will be included in their programme and sent to all competing finalists.

The CEO of HFA will be joining us at our next boxing up session and we have also been invited to attend their annual awards event in June, so the launch is taking off.

I am really pleased with this partnership as if we can prove it works we can hopefully introduce it across other County FA’s.

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Ellen White – Arsenal and England Ladies

Thanks to Helen for contacting Ellen White and for getting her interested in KitAid.

As a result she donated a mountain of her own England and Arsenal training kit and has expressed an interest in coming along to a boxing up session soon.

We held an official presentation at a St Albans City match in early Jan, when Ellens’s kit, some from Birmingham City Ladies, as well as St Albans, was handed over on a freezing half time pitch presentation.

Helen took some of the kit with her out to the Gambia and I have given some to Clare Muir for her trip to Kenya this month, so we should soon be able to show Ellen where her kit has ended up.

I have been trying to get Arsenal Ladies involved for a while now, as they are based at the local University of Herts and I think it is good for KitAid to help promote football for girls in Africa.

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