Gillingham’s community department is back up and running and director Shannon Galinson has spoken of her pride at seeing its revival.
Mrs Galinson spoke to the club’s media team during the EFL’s ‘Week of Action’ about the importance of having a community foundation – something the American owners were keen to see revived when they took over the club.
Community involvement has been crucial for the Galinsons from the day they took over.
Mrs Galinson said: “To arrive at the club and learn that we were one of just a couple of teams that didn’t have a community foundation, we knew that it was imperative.
“We can’t claim to be stewards of this club at this time and not be able to fully engage in the community the way we want to.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that we’re up and running. I couldn’t be prouder actually. It’s a big moment.
“We can’t claim to want to be part of this Medway and greater Kent community if we’re not engaging outside the club in the community.
“This is our best way to do that with a dedicated team led by our community director, Mark Abrahams, who’s been brilliant getting us over the line in terms of this foundation and then our community manager, Toby Waters, actually executing these programmes outside the building. We couldn’t do those things without a foundation.
“I’m a big believer but I like to walk the talk. I don’t want to say that we care about the community without being able to go out into it and do some work in it.”
The club’s community department was one of the victims of the cost cutting measures put in place during the Covid pandemic – before the Galinsons took over – along with the women’s football team.
Gillingham Ladies eventually moved to Chatham, now playing as Chatham Town Women. A women’s senior side remains an ambition but not in the short term.
The club’s community arm is a great way to engage with girls and women for now.
Speaking at the recent EFL Utilita under-13 Cup, where 10 schools took part in a regional tournament, Mrs Galinson said: “It’s fantastic to see so many young girls playing football and enjoying the experience and we are looking forward to supporting the growth of female football in Medway and the surrounding area in the future.”
The community foundation will be key to that going forward.
She said: “What the community foundation will allow us to do is to get into schools, develop programmes outside of schools, all of which will allow us to engage little girls in terms of the football. Soccer Schools will be something that we’re very focused on initially.
“That is a great way to get these young girls, young women involved and playing under the auspices of what we do at Gillingham as a club. That felt very important since we do not necessarily directly engage women in sport yet through the club itself. This is a great opportunity to start to look to ways to increase interest in football among women and girls.”
Mrs Galinson says the current aims are to build a solid foundation for their community department.
She said: “I have to give much credit to Mark Abrahams. (Managing director) Joe Comper and I had started to chip away very slowly, but frankly we didn’t really have the bandwidth to make it happen.
“We’ve (now) got school programmes going on. We’ve had half-term programmes happening as well.
“For me right now, (let’s) build a solid foundation so that what we do later is on stable, solid ground.
“We see all kinds of opportunities, not just schools and expansion of the school programme but also looking for ways to involve various age groups in the community, from young ones to older ones and seeing how we can take our best asset, which is the football, and bring it to other people.
“How can we bring it and how can it be a powerful tool to let people know that they’re part of all of this, whether they come and sit out in the ground on a match day or not?
“(We can) get into more schools to attract those young Gills fans. We want them to know what we do. We want them to fall in love with it the way that we do and then we’ll see where it goes from there.”
