Hello and welcome to my latest Canaries website feature.

The content of this brand new section will explain how Norwich City has developed as a community-focused organisation and works positively to represent its community by engaging, motivating and inspiring those people who live within it.

Over 70,000 local people participate annually in community initiatives organised by the Club and its key partners. This regular feature will provide an insight into the foundation of our work carried out, in the main by our community partners who are both dedicated and committed to making a real positive difference to people's lives.

The Study Support Centre has recently been celebrating the successes of their new learning scheme called 'Double Club'.

This new and exciting scheme enables children from local schools the opportunity to have a 'double' experience of learning through football and the playing of football. The courses are run by Kevin House and Paul Wickens from the Study Centre who visit schools to develop and increase the pupils competence, enjoyment and confidence in core skills by using their love and interest of football. Through this approach the scheme aims to increase self-worth and motivation to learn. The 'Double Club' project has proven to be a great success and recently Mill View Middle School and Sprowston High School met Canary hero's Darren Huckerby and Lee Croft at Carrow Road who presented them with their achievement certificates.

A fantastic December 2008 saw NCFC playing a major part within our community by spreading a little Christmas happiness!

A special event was held at the NANSA family centre in Norwich. The organisation provides free help and advice services to families who's children have disabilities including cerebral palsy. It was a special day for the children involved as they got to meet and receive presents from Father Christmas. Added to this, as another treat was the appearance of Darel Russell and now former Canary Chris Brown who went along to meet the children and donate a signed NCFC shirt, which, will be auctioned off to raise much needed funds for the centre. Thank you to both Darel and Chris who were outstanding on the day.

During the Christmas period our players formed part of the Canaries for the Community annual hospital visit to the Buxton ward of the N & N hospital

This involved six 1st Team players taking time out to visit children in the hospital and once again it turned out to be a fantastic treat for all. The children involved not only met their Norwich City heroes but also received presents donated by The Mall Giving Tree Charity and NCFC gift bags. A big thank you and well done to all the players involved, also, a big thank you to Duncan MacInnes, who heads-up the Canaries for the Community programme, and Bryan Gunn for organising the visit and gift bags. 

I was delighted to pay a visit to Sir John Leman High School recently to speak to a class of Year 10 COPE GCSE students. I was asked to speak about my time as a player and about the developments within Norwich City Football club as a community service and as a team. In addition we discussed modern training methods, psychology, diet and exercise. This will form a key part of the coursework for their Sport and Leisure module.

I recently visited the James Paget Hospital in Gorleston to present a cheque to the Special Care Baby Unit on behalf of Norwich City Fans. Those fans that participated in the 2007 Football Aid event donated money to the Fields of Dreams charity to experience playing a match at Carrow Road. A small percentage of the money raised was then passed on to the Clubs chosen charity - the SCBU in Gorleston.

' NCFC are fully backing the 2008 National Sport Relief campaign and would like to encourage Norwich City fans of all ages to get active and participate in the regions Sainsbury's Sport Relief Mile taking place on Sunday 16th March in St Peters Street, Norwich. It will be an ideal opportunity for both friends and family to join together for a fun day completing this sporting challenge and at the same time raise money towards such a worthwhile course.'

Playing For Success - Special conference being held on 18^th March 2008 at Carrow Road

Kick into Reading - NCFC will be playing their part in helping to educate local children in our community by encouraging pupils to learn by reading more. Chris Martin, the Club's Reading Champion, along with Rossi Jarvis and Matthew Halliday have recently attended Mill View School to read to pupils.

Playing with Words project - encouraging reading with an NCFC reward scheme - Kinsale School and Woodland View and Earlham High School will all be involved

Duncan MacInnes - Founder of CFTC - will shortly be announcing the summer events for 2008 as well designing a good behaviour reward scheme for vulnerable children living in the in and around the City.

Duncan's special visits to the Buxton Ward at the N & N hospital to show the children highlights of 1st Team matches and goals continues to be a big success.

The new FITC Development Brochure is launched - This is a 23 page, A5 size brochure outlining all courses available. Also includes booking forms.

Half Term Soccer Schools, Goalkeeping, Soccer Tots, Mini Kickers, Multi Sport Camps, Girls Football, Ability Counts, Match Nights, Match Day Clubs.

Step into Sports - Stevie Bramble held a Community Sports Leadership Awards Day called 'Step into Sports' here at Carrow Road on Monday 21st Jan. The day was designed to encourage youngsters to choose a profession within sport. On the day the participants were involved in media training, match analysis and football sessions on Carrow Park.

Ability Counts Week - 25th Feb to 1st March - The week will include a forum, 5 a-side competition, coaching sessions and finally the disabled players 'lap of honour' prior to the Blackpool match kicking off.

The Mall, Norwich has announced their 4-year sponsorship of FITC. The sponsorship will go towards delivering 250 hours per week in schools from after school clubs, coaching day visits, multi skills sessions as well as physical education/games lessons.