Jayne Bacon, the Trust’s head of community, has reflected on the last 12 months at the Trust, looking back on standout events that have happened. She began with the launch of the new strategy, saying: “2025 has been really busy at Chesterfield FC Community Trust.
“We have continued to work hard to offer support to our community, and the range of services and sections that we cover now is ever-increasing. This is the year that we launched our strategy for where we go for the next four years in the business.
“It was fantastic to have the support of our local MP, Toby Perkins, who also supported us with a Catalyst Fund bid alongside Middlesbrough and Blackburn Rovers. I’m delighted to say that we were awarded that bid, and we look forward to doing some work with care leavers, local care leavers, in the coming year.”
Age UK and the Trust partnered in a Guinness World Record attempt for the most people participating in chair-based exercise. Jayne said: “The day was really well attended, and we look forward to being able to announce whether we have broken the record very soon, once the verification is complete.”
The Trust’s Social Prescribing service for young people has continued to grow in 2025. Jayne said: “The impact on the lives of young people is quite outstanding. It’s a fantastic team who work to provide medical intervention and a social intervention to their mental health support and needs.”
Continuing with Alternative Provision, Jayne said: “Staff from our Alternative Provision attended the Redhill Annual Conference, and their feedback was absolutely superb, with over 2,000 people in attendance.
“It enabled our staff in our Alternative Provision to gain new skills, new contacts to continue to run our programme for young people who are either at risk of exclusion or not attending school.”
Jayne spoke about Friend of the Trust, Wesco Anixter, inviting students to their factory for a tour, saying: “We had a fantastic STEM day with Wesco Anixter. A really awe-inspiring day to see how science, technology, engineering and maths can come together to make a brilliant factory.”
The end of November saw the annual Leverton UK Charity Ball at the SMH Group Stadium, which raises money for the Trust. Jayne commented: “The wonderful Marcus Leverton and his family continued their support for the Trust. It was a night not to be forgotten, with over £30,000 raised. Thank you to everybody involved.”
Jayne and Keith attended the EFL’s conference, where they shared the ‘Friends of the Trust’ programme with other club charity organisations. She said: “Hopefully others could take this forward and do something similar to help them with income generation in such challenging times for charities.”
Camp Inspire took place again in the summer and Easter, with winter camps taking place from December 29 until January 2. Jayne said: “Thank you to the government for deciding to continue to fund holiday activity and food programmes across the country, which means that we can continue our Camp Inspire delivery.
“Our partners got involved in providing breakfast, we provide a hot school meal, two hours of physical activity, an hour of inspirational activity and a chance to meet friends, for young people with SEND.”
Jayne moved on to Kellogg’s Football Camps, which also ran over the school holidays, saying: “Funded by Kellogg’s, a great partnership which continues to be successful with a huge number of young people playing football daily during their holidays.”
A free daily minibus service, taking patients from near the HUB at the SMH Group Stadium to Weston Park Cancer Centre, was launched in June. Jayne said: “We’re really proud of this partnership, and we know that people enjoy coming to the HUB before they catch the bus, maybe having a coffee or meeting with other people who are also going through the same treatment.”
Talking about the Trust’s monthly Affected by Cancer (ABC) group, Jayne commented: “It’s a really, really powerful and empowering group of people who are either being affected by cancer directly or have lost a loved one or their family. If anybody would like to get involved, you know where we are. Please give us a call.”
