We were delighted to be joined by delegates from community trusts from all around the country, alongside some of our key partners and stakeholders. 

 

Our Annual Conference for 2024 was an opportunity for us to reflect on the last three years of our Football Powered strategy, as we started the conversation about our focus for our next strategic period. 

 

We were joined by Voluntary Action for South Lanarkshire CEO Steven Sweeney, our Trustee Ruth Boyle, who is Policy Manager at Poverty Alliance and Jillian Gibson, Policy Manager at COSLA. 

 

The three spoke to delegates about how football can be policy shaping, not policy chasing. 

 

They shared their hope for the future and spoke about concerns they have moving forward, thinking about how football can impact policy in Scotland. 

 

It was also fantastic to have our partners at Three Bridges Recruitment, who addressed the recruitment issues in the third sector, and how ATCs can overcome them. 

 

Robert Kielty from the University of Stirling was also on hand to chat about how ATCs can work with them to support students into our industry. 

 

We were delighted to provide our community trusts with several updates in the afternoon, including news regarding funding programmes such as Festive Friends. 

 

We also ran a series of conversations cafes, in which delegates were given the opportunity to share their thoughts on our next strategic period. 

 

Nicky shared her gratitude for those in attendance today. 

 

“We were so pleased to see so many of our ATCs at today’s conference,” she said. 

 

“Today was an opportunity to see network and learn more about what’s happening at community trusts all over Scotland, and to reflect on our work collectively since our last conference. 

 

“We have started conversations around our next strategic period, with everyone providing excellent insight for how we should move forward in the future.” 

 

We’re thankful to everyone who made the trip to Glasgow today for our conference, and we’re hopeful that they will all continue to make an enormous impact on those in their communities.