The football club has designed and will deliver a structured programme of engagement which will provide members of the local community with the opportunity to participate in a broad range of free sporting and non-sporting activities.
The year-long project has a variety of aims including developing young talent, promoting non-league football to a wider audience, attracting volunteers, and encouraging health, fitness and strong community links with individuals and groups within the local community.
Project activities will be led by newly appointed Community Engagement Officer Rob Wenham and will include Community Learning Workshops and Courses, Digital Skills Workshops, Monthly Social Evenings, Youth Football Coaching, Fitness Classes and ‘Behind the Scenes’ Stadium Tours of the Cygnet Health Care Stadium.
Each activity is tailored to need and designed with the objective of improving the physical or psychological health of local people, providing individuals with an opportunity to increase social interaction whilst importantly ‘sign-posting’ access to key community organisations and support services available in the Taunton area.
Cygnet Health Care is one of a number of organisations supporting the new project and is a continuation of a partnership with Taunton Town FC that began with a sponsorship deal that was struck in 2019 that saw the club’s stadium renamed the Cygnet Health Care stadium. Since then the club have held a special Cygnet Health Care match day which saw a service user present the ‘man of the match’ award and also the renaming of one of Cygnet Hospital Taunton’s wards as Peacocks Ward after the club’s nickname.
Stuart Hooper, Active Life Lead at Cygnet Hospital Taunton said, “We are proud to be associated with Taunton Town FC particularly during these challenging times and appreciate the amazing work being undertaken. We look forward to supporting Taunton Town FC further with its Community Engagement Project which provides a great opportunity for our service users to engage further with the Club by supporting events and becoming actively involved by assisting to serve activity refreshments”.