Community Outreach 2022-23
This season is not only exciting from a competitive point of view, but also in and around the entire club. In particular, the club has created new positions for Community Outreach. Hear from them about their plans for the season as well as their first successful event a couple of weeks ago.
A new season begins. A new crop of exciting players brought into the club and with it, the prospect of promotion and a good cup run for all involved at the club. Pre-season preparations are largely the same each year for the club, but this year, something unique is brewing. As the club are taking the right steps forward to integrate the men’s and women’s side into one club, CUAFC has taken a brave step into appointing their own Community Outreach Officers for the club - a position that is long overdue, and in our eyes, incredibly important.
For the 22/23 season, Jake Barker and Torres Ng are the men’s representatives for outreach, and Pauline Pfuderer is the women’s representative. As a team, we are hoping to make a big impact within the community. We have already had our inaugural event as a team, the Powerhouse Games (see attached pictures), which was organised by Power2Inspire, a fantastic organisation that aims to make sports inclusive for all members of society, able-bodied or not. After such a successful first event, we are hoping to continue this momentum by organising football sessions for local Cambridge Schools, as well as piloting a mentorship scheme for both men and women who would want to both (i) apply to Cambridge, and (ii) wish to play football while at University. This scheme will hopefully begin to provide help and feedback for students wanting to apply to Cambridge, but also showcase the club to potential freshers to bolster CUAFC squads. We have also begun to collaborate with Cambridge United Football Club Community Trust, and aid in a meaningful way their impact on the local Cambridge Community.
Finally, our larger goals are to try and market Blues Varsity as an outreach event and on the weekend of the match, visit local schools and communities to deliver outreach - focussing on some of the more socio-economically impoverished London Boroughs around where Varsity is being held. Unfortunately, at the moment, we are relying on the goodwill of members of the club to undertake this outreach, and as well as this, we are being limited in our geographic reach to just Cambridge. We would like to extend this as much as we can, and so if any alumni have any ideas or means of support for our endeavours, we would be delighted to bring you on board to have a chat about what your thoughts and ideas may be. If you feel like you would like to get involved, please do email us at community.outreach.cuafc@gmail.com.
