Taunton Town hope to see their bond with the community go from new heights as a range of new initiatives gather pace.

The Peacocks launched their Community Engagement Project, backed by a grant from the Trident Community Foundation, in June and the opening programmes are now in full swing with plenty more to come.

A series of health and wellbeing workshops have been running at the Cygnet Healthcare Stadium since September while sessions in digital skills have also commenced.

The funding from the grant will also be used to run community coaching sessions for young players from December onwards, while youngsters in the Taunton area now have the chance to be part of the Junior Peacocks membership scheme as the club seek to attract the next generation.

“There’s a great deal going on and it’s spiralling all the time,” said community director Rob Wenham.

“We considered reducing some components of the project but found we didn’t actually have to tailor too much.

“The health and wellbeing workshops have been really well received and the idea for the digital skills workshops actually came from taking our supporters to an away game, when the elderly supporters and those with learning difficulties were asking about getting on the club website and sorting their bills online.

“At the match against Beaconsfield in October, we invited all the project partners to have an exhibition stand and promote their community services, which was really positive, and the whole thing has been brilliant so far.

“It’s better than we thought it was going to be. It’s exciting and it’s so good to be able to do something so positive for the community from the club’s perspective.”

The Peacocks are one of more than 30 clubs across the Pitching In Southern, Isthmian and Northern Premier Leagues to have been successful in the first two rounds of Trident Community Foundation grants, which range from £1,000 to £5,000.

The Foundation has been established by Pitching In, a multi-million pound grassroots sport investment programme set up by Ladbrokes with the support of its owner Entain which aims to highlight the community aspect of non-league football as well as the value of volunteers.

“One of the aims of our community project is to increase the number of volunteers and people getting involved with the club,” Wenham added.

“We’ve recently taken on two new stewards who, through the launch of the project, now get involved – one does weekends and the other does Tuesday evening fixtures.

“They are both family men with kids who weren’t coming along before but are now volunteering, which is another step in the right direction.

“We’ve just launched our ‘Junior Peacocks’ initiative which we’ll be promoting along with the rest of our community engagement project activities, events and partner’s community services in the town centre before Christmas and early next year we are hoping to launch football sessions for men with mental health problems.

“It’s amazing what the grant has allowed us to do and we’re really grateful to the Trident Community Foundation and Pitching In”. 

Ladbrokes, with the support of its owner Entain, has launched a multi-million pound investment programme, Pitching In, designed to support and promote grassroots sports. For more details see: https://entaingroup.com/sustainability/pitching-in/