5 great things you should know about Rugby4Heroes

Rugby4Heroes … 2014 in review… and what a year it has been!

Why Rugby4Heroes?

The first Rugby4Heroes event at Old Leamingtonians RFC in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, was conceived in 2009 to commemorate the life of fallen Stratford paratrooper Private Joe Whittaker, who was killed in action in Afghanistan serving with 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment.

Joe was an outstanding son, brother, soldier, colleague and sportsman from a close and loving family. We felt we simply could not stand by and do nothing to help his and other families affected by the conflict. So the idea of helping servicemen and women and their families in the UK military community through the powerful medium of sport, was reborn.

A one-day festival of rugby and music was held on a sunny Sunday in May 2009, raising £1400 for ABF The Soldiers’ Charity and Combat Stress. As the saying goes, mighty oaks from little acorns grow. Given extra impetus by the mounting casualties at the time and the loss of another outstanding young Warwickshire soldier, Private Conrad Lewis, in 2011, we decided to ramp up our efforts to ‘do our bit’.

Since that time, the number of events and volunteers has grown exponentially. At the time of writing, Rugby4Heroes has just completed its sixth year of fundraising, delivering the largest ever sum of donations to Forces charities, including Help for Heroes, the Royal British Legion, ABF The Soldiers Charity and local Warwickshire charitable trust, 353.

The centrepiece of the events programme is an annual rugby, music and food & drink festival held each May. This is powerfully backed up by a black tie ball and a golf day – and there are more new events in the pipeline.

Since we started our very own Band of (volunteering) Brothers and Sisters, we have now raised and donated almost £53,000, and we’ve helped a large number of people in our community.

This has all been delivered by an enthusiastic and dedicated group of unpaid volunteers.

What’s so special about Rugby4Heroes?

This is a question we have been asking ourselves a lot this year, not just because of the withdrawal of British, US and NATO alliance forces from Afghanistan. But also, as an organising team, we regularly evaluate our success and look for ways to innovate and improve.

It’s our view that Rugby4Heroes is an extraordinary local phenomenon in the global world of volunteering, charitable fundraising and Corporate & Social Responsibility.

‘What’s so special?’ you might reasonably ask. Let’s look at the top five reasons why, through the lens of what has been achieved in 2014 and over the last 6 years.

And we also wanted to share some lessons learned.

5 great things you should know about Rugby4Heroes

1. We’ve harnessed the power of people to deliver goals

Rugby4Heroes is and has always been about people coming together to help others through volunteering our time and effort. In other words, not making a material personal gain from it.

From the small team who started back in 2009, we have grown to a band of over 50 volunteers in 2014 from the local and national rugby and business community, volunteer organisations including the local Army Cadet force, independent business owners and retailers, and some high-powered dudes from both national and international business brands.

The Armed Forces and our benefit charities themselves have also become increasingly involved as news of our achievements has spread across the land. As one of the core R4H team members, local marketing and graphic design company owner, Gaz Nash, regularly says, ‘people ‘get’ what we are doing’.

Many leadership gurus, military officers and business schools talk about the central purpose and role of leadership and leaders, as delivering results through harnessing the power of the team – achieving results through others. This is an approach we have always tried to ensure we have worked to, to deliver results beyond our material resources and what we think we are capable of. Yes, we’re ‘punching above our weight’.

We have certainly done this in 2014, and it’s been a key learning point for us. Who would have thought that we would have been able to attract a 10 tonne military helicopter to visit our modest Leamington Spa festival?

2. It’s not just about money and fundraising…

A core ethos for us is that we believe we have a clear moral obligation to support our servicemen and women, who have given so much (and in 453 cases in Afghanistan, made the ultimate sacrifice) to preserve our security and way of life.

They go the extra mile for us (and then some), so we want to go the extra mile for them.

This year, the Rugby4Heroes team has been very active in getting out and about to see how the money we’ve raised has been put to good use. We have also continued to support families of fallen servicemen from Warwickshire and the West Midlands.

We have experienced an amazing and diverse range of visits and encounters;

In April, we were honoured to be shown around the Army Personnel Recovery Centre at Tedworth House, Wiltshire. Help for Heroes and the Royal British Legion have done an amazing job in refurbishing and now running this run-down MOD property as one of five dedicated recovery centres around the UK. We also visited the HQ of Help for Heroes in their now legendary ‘Tin Hut’ building, and were blown away by the enthusiasm of their fundraising team.
In May we delivered our most successful Festival of rugby, music and street food in our six year history.
In July and August we took part in the annual Nijmegen trek challenge in Holland and a World war I Centenary Walk from Warwick to Stratford upon Avon, raising money and awareness for ABF The Soldiers’ Charity.
In September, we joined thousands of spectators at the Inaugural Invictus Games held in the Copperbox and other venues at the Queen Elizabeth’s Olympic Park. We saw servicemen and women who a few short months ago had suffered life-changing injuries and yet were now competing vigorously in an international sporting arena – and in the case of wheelchair rugby, trying to knock seven bells out of each other! Inspirational stuff.
In October we had a further weekend of fundraising events, including our first ever Rugby4Heroes golf day and our most successful annual Black Tie Ball, in the 1920’s theme of The Great Gatsby. We also joined a diverse and fun team of walkers who completed the 100 Kilometre Front Line Walk, held to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, and expertly organized by ABF The Soldiers’ Charity.
We have been recognised for our efforts in the community, winning the prestigious Team of the Year Award at the Touch FM Pride of Warwick District event and being named as a finalist for the Leamington Legends category at the Leamington Business Awards.
Most powerfully, this year our Festival team representatives from the Soldiers’ Charity handled three case referrals from service personnel and their families, to discuss PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) issues. Three cases. At our Festival. What would have happened to those individuals if we hadn’t been there?

We’ve been mighty busy. And it’s been very satisfying.

3. … but raising money does help!

Hey, one of our team is a banker (no snickering please) and we love metrics and numbers as a result! And at the end of the day, Forces charities still need hard cash to help support our servicemen and women and their families. This could be for providing rehabilitation facilities and care, physical and psychological counselling and support, or helping with training and facilitating new careers for those no longer able to serve.

So, some interesting but fun Rugby4 Heroes metrics;

This year we’ve raised in excess of £20,000 for our benefit charities.
We’ve raised almost £53,000 in total – over half way to our target of £100k in 10 years!
More than 2,000 people attended our Festival in 2014 – a new record.
Over 210 guests were entertained at our ball – another record.
According to our resident festival bar team leader and statistician, we downed more than 3,300 pints of foaming ale at our festival. We ran out of beer – twice – over the weekend.
We supported and engaged many voluntary organisations – Army cadets, scouts, sea cadets, as well as the charities themselves.
We make an important contribution to the local economy. In 2014, we spent in excess of £15k on goods and services form local suppliers in Warwick and Leamington. We’ve engaged local breweries and street food vendors to keep our army of hungry volunteers, rugby players and festival goers fed and watered. Since the start, we calculate we have injected over £50k into the local business economy.

Our goal is to deliver donations topping the £100,000 mark – and we are more than half way there now! Onwards and upwards.

4. We’ve exploited the power of social media as a highly effective strategic marketing tool

We could not have achieved these results without harnessing the power of social media. We actively use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to share core information and event activities and connect with people. It’s critical as a way of raising awareness of our events and driving footfall.

We don’t sell through these channels. We network, we market, we exchange information, we make friends and help others, and we also have fun. We’ve developed some extraordinary connections and met some amazing people in real life, all through Twitter. Who would have thought we could support our activities in this way, barely five years ago? A zero cost channel to market with global reach – awesome.

Best of all, we plan our social media activity as a part of our broader campaign plan – alongside our website communications, external media engagement, and marketing collateral; all developed and executed to a very high professional standard.

5. We’ve had fun and made friends along the way!

Professor Paul Dolan of the London School of Economics, in his recently published book ‘Happiness by Design’, talks about the importance of balancing both purpose and pleasure in one’s life.

He has conducted fantastic empirical research and statistical models to prove this point, however one can also buy into the practical common sense of what he says.

We strive to get the right balance between purpose and pleasure in what we do, and we aim to deliver this balance in every event we hold. If we’re not enjoying ourselves along the way, it makes delivery of our goals and our purpose that much harder.

We’ve met some terrific and inspirational people along our journey, and we think we have got the balance right between purpose and pleasure. We’ve assembled a team of outstanding volunteers, within our rugby club and outside it. We have also had the terrific support of our three Rugby4Heroes Patrons:

Former Royal Marine, Marine Biologist and BBC TV star, Monty Halls
Team GB Wheelchair Rugby and Paralympian athlete, Mandip Sehmi
Former West Midlands soldier and ultra marathon athlete, Karl Hinett.

They all have inspirational stories to tell and value to add, and have been great ambassadors for our cause. To underscore the previous point above, we connected with two out of three of them over Twitter!

So, in the inimitable words of Frank Sinatra, it’s been a very good year!

We particularly wish to acknowledge the support of Chairman Charlie Sabin, the Committee and members of Old Leamingtonians RFC who have supported Rugby4Heroes from day one, and continue to do so.

We’re proud to have made a difference as part of a great team, proud to have been part of something very special and to work alongside some exceptional people, and proud to support our servicemen and women and their families.