Charity starts at the Roundhegians Rugby Club
Because of its Memorial purpose, the Roundhegians Sports Association actively encourages its members to link sporting activity to charitable fundraising
We make regular small collections in aid of The NSPCC, Barnardos, Leeds Candlelighters and St Gemma’s Hospice.
We support the work of St Gemma’s Hospice in more significant ways: one of the Golf Society annual events is the Graham Oxer Memorial Trophy competition, proceeds from which are donated to St Gemma’s. As many as thirty members of the Senior Rugby Club have attended the St Gemma’s Windermere Row in the last two years – usually manning four to six boats, with the rest of the party lending moral support. In 2007 St Gemma’s asked us to host a corporate It’s a Knockout competition, in which twelve teams took part. The event is likely to be repeated in 2008 and may extend to two days. In 2007 the event raised over £20,000 for St Gemma’s Hospice.
Members of the Rugby Club (including several wives and girlfriends) have also regularly completed the Leeds Half Marathon. Sometimes participants choose their own charity, and sometimes they group together to support a particular cause. Two prominent choices are the Headway Trust and the Holy Cross Hospice in Hazlemere. Several of our members have also run in the London and Edinburgh marathons, raising funds to help Get Kids Going (which funds special wheelchairs) and Backup (which helps people with spinal injuries) among other charities.
In 2006 Ladies from across the sporting clubs led a particularly successful fundraising campaign in aid of Cancer Research, generating over £6,000 from sales of a sport-themed calendar and a special charity dinner dance.
For three years the Rugby Club has sent donations to help the Goedgedacht Trust, (http://www.goedgedachttrust.org.za) which was established to help disadvantaged young people in a community near Cape Town. The Trust encourages the involvement of young people in organized sport – Rugby for the boys and Netball for the girls – to help combat the threats of poverty, criminal involvement and drug-taking. The Trust also provides education and opportunities for young people to engage in purposeful work, mostly through the farming of olive groves.