Trailfinders’ Head of Community on the Mini Mile and Ealing Half Marathon
Trailfinders’ Head of Community Ian Isham discussed the Club’s sponsorship of the Mini Mile during the Ealing Half Marathon weekend.
With the annual Ealing Half Marathon weekend taking place at the end of September, Trailfinders are at the heart of the community activity. As part of the Club’s involvement with the wider community, they are the headline sponsor for the Mini Mile.
The Trailfinders Ealing Mini Mile gives children and families the chance to be part of race weekend on a course of their own, and hundreds of young runners take part each year.
Leading up to the half marathon weekend, the Club are also running their new activity group, The Trail Club.
Ian Isham Head of Community at Ealing Trailfinders discussed the importance of the Club’s work in the wider community and how this is tied into the half marathon weekend.
‘The community and foundation work to deliver lots of activities and initiatives locally. Our work is split into three main areas. We have our sports and rugby development which includes working with local schools, clubs, community groups and helping to develop people with their rugby or generally playing sports.
‘The second element is working as sport for development. We’re using the power of sport, the power of rugby, to tackle societal changes. So that might be helping people with disabilities get more active, help reduce isolation for older people or anything along those lines, but helping people to get more active and fulfilling lives.
‘The third strand is our community engagement. So we’re obviously a professional men’s and women’s team, but actually getting our players out into local communities, working with local charities and giving back to the local area is a key element for us.’
The Trailfinders Ealing Mini Mile
‘Trailfinders are the main sponsors for the Mini Mile, and it’s great that we get to work with kids and young people throughout the year. But actually being able to sponsor an event as part of the Ealing Half Marathon weekend, where they can all come together and take part in this fantastic event, is brilliant.
‘As a community department, we spend most of the year encouraging people to be more active. Actually being part of this Ealing Half Marathon weekend has made us look at ourselves and and how we can get more active alongside that.
‘We’ve got a team of people from club staff members to trustees and myself included, that are going to be taking part and challenging ourselves to run the Ealing Half Marathon ourselves. It’s not something that I’m particularly used to. I’m not a runner. I think the furthest I’d ever ran was was 10K before this. So this is quite a big challenge for myself personally.
‘Everyone running from our team is helping to raise funds for our foundation.’
Supporters of the club and its activations can donate to the foundation here.
Isham added: ‘Any of the money raised to our foundation goes straight back into our community projects, working in the local area, and just generally any support either in advance or on the day is really important.’
The Trail Club
If you want to get involved with the Club’s activations to get moving, you can join The Trail Club. This is an online community bringing supporters, players, staff, partners and the wider Ealing community together through movement and activity.
Hosted on Strava, The Trail Club is free to join and open to everyone, whatever your experience or ability. Whether you run, walk, cycle, train in the gym or enjoy any other form of exercise, every activity counts.
Isham said: ‘Seeing everybody, whether it be just going for a walk or getting out and training for the half marathon, it’s great to see everyone logging their activities on The Trail Club and supporting each other.’
