LATEST CLUB NEWS

Season 

Congratulations to all our teams, Volunteers, players and parents for their efforts last season,  our club continues to grow, our numbers are now over 400, enjoying sport and recreation and in particular Rugby League – our numbers have more than trebled over the last 5 years a credit to everyone involved at the Sharks.

We should thank Wigan Warriors and the community foundation for the work they have done in supporting the Sharks at various times through the season, it’s great to report our ever increasing relationship with the Warriors.

We are delighted that several of our 16s have signed professional contracts with Wigan, Warrington  St Helens and Leigh over the last couple of years alongside this we have a number of scholarship players at all our local professional clubs we wish them all well and we follow their progress with pride. 

We continue to develop links with other professional clubs not only adding value to their delivery but providing links from which we can all benefit. 

Vicarage Lane 

Many of you may not appreciate how we have set up the Vicarage Lane site the building and its governance –  the whole site is a shared facility with Shevington FC, last year the costs of maintaining the pitches of the site was circa 20K. 

However the building while owned equally between the clubs is a community facility run by the community with each clubs having a representative on the small committee – this committee is responsible for maintaining the building as well as providing a community facility to generate health and wellbeing across both the local and wider community.  It is a model that we should be proud of – alongside this our challenge is to make the building self-financing thus reducing the cost burden to the clubs – to this end we need more support to assist in the kitchen on Sunday and other days for example when our open age play including midweek games.

Social Impact and Well – Being Hubs 

Shevington Sharks were selected as one of five clubs working with the RFL and  RLWC21 committee to develop a health and well-being hub across both the local and wider community – this will increase revenue whilst at the same time the building and its facilities will add value to service deliverers and providing  – Please see below some of our successes as we continue to develop this role – 

1. We have secured block bookings for using the facilities for Wigan Council to provide outreach classes for local residents. 
2. We are working with the Wigan Youth Justice team, were we will enable young people to complete their community service and also train young people in the use of kitchen equipment and cooking – we have further meetings planned – young people will add value to our volunteers, clearing areas and preparing pitches for matches and carrying out general works. 
3. We are running keep fit classes for the over 60s and younger people in sessions through the week –currently 5 sessions per week.
4. We have Karate classes twice a week.
5. We are working with Shevington High School and other High Schools with Duke of Edinburgh students providing volunteering opportunities to assist them complete their award – and also adding benefit to the clubs working in the kitchens and generally helping on site –we continue to develop links with schools developing not only Rugby as a sport, but creating real life experiences for students for the benefit of the Football Club and The Sharks. 
6. We have held an open day introducing different sectors across both the public and private sectors to the site and facility. 
7. We have developed links with local organisations through our open days and regular meetings – developing a wider volunteer base for our clubs, whilst at the same time increasing knowledge of our facilities and its possible usage, to add value to their own delivery.
8. We are currently working with the FA, who are going to visit site and film our activities, as an example of both multi-sport use and our work in developing links and well-being initiatives across both the local and wider community.
9. We have regular meetings with local council employees, local schools and other organisations to further add value to our delivery.

Challenges Ahead 

Our club continues to grow, we have a clearly defined plan of continuous improvement in our delivery, we acknowledge, at times, like all clubs that we have limited access to facilities – something that we are working hard to remedy, working with funders across not only rugby league but across several sports – watch this space ……. and fingers crossed.

We continue to work with local schools in Shevington, Standish and Orrell providing not only coaching but providing assistance across a variety of areas from working with Duke of Edinburgh students, and media students – in October we assisted in delivering sessions around Mental Health in Shevington High School – we continue to grow and develop our links with the community.

Our facility adds value to other providers as well as providing valuable experience to ther young people.