PROUD JANE PASSES BATON
TRAILBLAZER Jane Booth believes the key to commu- nity involvement is working together as she retires from her role at Woking after 17 successful years.
Booth was instrumental in setting up and running the Cards’ award-winning community department while also providing advice to other Non-League clubs.
Woking held a special lunch for Booth this week attended by her friends and former colleagues, Mayor Liam Lyons, representatives from the Isthmian and Suburban Leagues as well as National League Trust chairman Brian Lee and the organisation’s project manager Susan O’Brien.
Booth, a Woking supporter for more than 50 years and whose father, Tom, was chairman in the 1980s, formally launched Cardinals in the Community in 2004.
Community
It was one of the first club-led community programmes in Non-League and has won numerous awards including community club for the Conference
South, twice in the Conference Premier and the prestigious Football Foundation prize at The NLP’s National Game Awards.
Booth has also been recognised for her forward-thinking ideas such as Maths of the Day, a scheme to make mental arithmetic fun by involving football. Cardinals in the Community offers a wide range of programmes for all ages including after-school sports clubs, walking football, special needs and wellbeing tournaments, mobility work with dementia sufferers, ladies’ and girls’ football and junior citizens.
Booth is quick to pass on the credit to her staff – and is thankful for the financial support of the council – but is proud of the work she has done which stems from forming partnerships.
“For me, community work is all about the partnerships we’ve gained with people, you have to work together,” Booth, who has also been a driving force behind the club’s successful academy, told The NLP.
Successful
“We may be competitors on the pitch but we’re not competitors when it comes to community work. We’ve done things with Sutton and Aldershot and that’s how it should be. The whole point is to help people.”
Booth has been in regular contact with other NonLeague clubs, sharing ideas and advice to help get projects started.
When the National League Trust – an organisation to support community programmes at clubs of the three divisions at Steps 1 and 2 – was launched, Booth was asked to speak about Woking’s community department at the House of Commons in front of all the clubs plus MPs and Lords.
“I had sweaty palms all the way up to London but we did it and then we had a lot of phone calls from clubs to help them,” she laughed. “I’ll still be a Trustee at Woking and always on the end of the phone. It’s left in good hands.”
O’Brien added: “We’ve had the pleasure of working with Jane for nearly 12 years.
“The quality of delivery and the breadth of the programme shows her understanding of the many ways a club’s influence can impact across a community.
“We are also grateful for the help and advice she has given to many of the projects we fund that have developed at other clubs.”