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Network Group celebrated its 30th year by raising more than £30,000 for the Street Soccer Foundation at its recent annual gala and awards event held at Wembley Stadium.
The money raised will enable around 100 young adults, who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, to benefit from the Street Soccer Academy, a personal development programme which uses football as a catalyst to engage participants in positive mindset training, mentoring, and employability skills workshops.
Network Group is a collective of almost 90 IT support companies that work together to collectively raise standards in the tech industry and share expertise and innovations.
The group has grown significantly over the past three decades to become the UK’s leading IT community and members meet every quarter, with a charity chosen to benefit from its annual gala each year.
The 30th year celebration at Wembley was held in late April with around 300 people in attendance and incorporated presentations, networking opportunities, a talk from retired footballer Stuart Pearce, on-stage conversations with industry figures including Danny Jenkins, the Co-Founder and CEO of ThreatLocker, and an expo with more than 40 partner stands.
In the evening, a dinner and awards ceremony took place where Keith Mabbutt, Founder and CEO of the Street Soccer Foundation, spoke to the audience about how the Street Soccer Academy programme helps vulnerable and disadvantaged 18 to 30-year olds to get into education, training or employment, before a raffle and auction was held to raise funds for the charity.
David Tulip, Managing Director of Network Group, said: “It’s nice to make a difference to charities that are not necessarily the biggest.
“Football’s huge across all sectors and the beauty of our organisation is that we’re across the whole nation.
“Between the companies that are members, we probably have supporters of every football club in the country, so the Street Soccer Foundation resonated with our audience as being centred around our national sport.
“Homelessness is something that can be easily overlooked amongst all the other good causes that are out there and if you can get people, who are struggling, playing sport and make a difference in their lives, then, thanks to our community and our membership, we’re able to contribute to something great.”
Keith Mabbutt commented: “It was a privilege to be a part of Network Group’s 30th anniversary celebrations and to be their chosen charity. The response we received on the night was incredible and truly humbling. To have raised such a significant sum of money only goes to show what generous hearts and minds this amazing community of businesses have. We will be investing all monies raised into our nationally acclaimed Academy programme to help 100 vulnerable young people nationwide turn their lives around for the better, all thanks to The Network Group and their members.”
To mark the generosity of Network Group’s fundraising on the night, the group has been made an official Founding Member of The Big Goal, which is uniting the ICT industry to change lives through football.
Keith Mabbutt added: “I said to David that we’d be more than delighted to make Network Group an official Founding Member of The Big Goal in this, our inaugural year of the national campaign initiative. Going forward, we’ll now be able to keep members abreast of our Academy delivery plans and I greatly look forward to seeing the positive impact I know we’ll achieve in the lives of others through this fantastic collaboration.”
To find out more about The Big Goal, visit www.thebiggoal.co.uk
For more information on Network Group, visit www.nbg.co.uk
