Episode 2: Why Community Matters: Care, Connection, Collaboration

Johnny: Welcome to the second episode of our Built, Managed, Lived podcast. I’m your host, today, Johnny Holmes, Director of FirstPort,  South West. And in this episode, we are exploring the importance of community, how it’s shaped by people, places, and the shared experiences that bring them together. I’m joined today by Nick Mason from Taunton Rugby Club, to discuss the different groups that influence local life residents, businesses, and organisations, and how each, contributes to the other, with local people, living and working within our community. So the South West is a large region for us. We’ve got different counties, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. We’ve got rugged coastlines, and we’ve got, Exmoor, Dartmoor, and, and Bodmin. And of course, we can’t come to Somerset without, mentioning the, Cider Orchards, within the, local communities. We’ve been operating within the local area for over 25 years, and we manage apartment buildings and residential, estates, across the South West. Nick, let’s talk about, Sommerfield Stadium and Taunton Rugby Club. So, it was a big year for the club last year, wasn’t it? You had a big milestone, a big anniversary.

Nick: We did. Firstly, thank you very much for inviting me on today Johnny. Yeah, a massive year for us, 150 years. Let’s hope for 150 more. We’ve had some pretty, good nights here to celebrate. We did the launch night. Scott Quinnell came down.

Johnny: Oh okay.

Nick: He came and joined us and yeah, absolutely brilliant. Then we ended it with Nigel Owens who came down.

Johnny: Oh wow.

Nick: Yeah. So it was, that was really great. People we had upstairs enjoying that were all different people from the community. You know, it wasn’t just our sponsors or the high flying corporate world. It was the parents of the juniors, it was the family of the players and stuff like that. So it’s just amazing.

Johnny: It’s a big community here. I mean the towns are around 60,000 people. I mean that’s pretty much the size of our portfolio within the Southwest. And we were talking earlier that the rugby club and businesses touch each other in ways that we don’t necessarily make those direct connections. We have used the rugby club and supported the club for a number of years as a really valued partner for our business meetings and staff events and actually today we have our team leaders from across our service, charge and administration teams  undertaking our training with our learning and development team. The club’s been always really hospitable to us, but one of the things that’s really important is those social values and we could use a big corporate brand for that. But in terms of social values, we’re supporting the rugby club who in turn is supporting the community. How many members do you have within the club? Has it grown from strength to strength?

Nick: Yeah, it’s, I reckon members wise we’re probably up around 6-7 hundred

Johnny: Wow!

Nick: And that’s predominantly down to our like junior section. We’ve got an absolute thriving junior section. Yeah, the Saturdays are great here because you’re the first team we’re playing and that’s what brings in the big crowd and you know, that’s where the club can make a decent bit of revenue. But actually you come down here on a Sunday and you see, you know, 300 juniors running around and playing. And that’s a big part of the community thing. Not just the juniors playing, but it’s the social for the parents, you know, you’ve got mum and dad and grandparents and brothers and sisters having opacity, having a coffee, watching something upstairs. Rugby is such a social game and that’s the big part of it. And you know, people’s lives are dictated in the Winter by their Sunday Rugby at Taunton Rugby Club.

Johnny: And that’s the sustainability as well, isn’t it? Because as we know, the next generation, the youth are the future and they are the future suppliers, providers of business services back to the club. So it’s that whole kind of circle of life within the community. And I guess that’s why, you know, 150 years strong, the rugby club with that youth section that will provide that sustainability for the next 150

years. And that’s really the importance of the people, isn’t it?

Nick: 100% You’ve got a junior that turns up on a Sunday and then they’re absolutely loving it and the dads they’re watching and he’s got a small electrical company and then he wants to buy in and support the club because then he’s supporting his child and then he’s bringing on colleagues and it’s just that whole.

Johnny: They’re buying merch as well.

Nick: Well, exactly. It just it just completely sort of can snowball. Most people come down here and they find their love and this. We get so many different ways of people supporting us. Whether someone wants to come down here on a Saturday and have beers watching the rugby, that’s great to support us. If people want to book their meetings like you guys do with us, that’s amazing and that’s another way of supporting us. Some people do sponsorship. There’s so many different ways and that’s why we’re so lucky that the community is so big, that there’s different ways and everyone has a way in in which they can support.

Johnny: We’re talking about local suppliers earlier. We use over 150 suppliers locally with the TA post code and many of those suppliers are sponsors of the rugby club. So, we’re crossing paths within the community all the time through those local suppliers and relationships. And you’re using local suppliers for your sustainability as well, I guess, Local farmers and producers.

Nick: Yeah. So, so all sorts, obviously people might have seen that we’re impacted by some flooding recently. So, today’s a prime example that we’ve got a workforce down there getting the club back to where we need it to be. We’ve got local painters, local building merchants that have helped supply the goods for us.

Johnny: That’s amazing, seeing it coming together.

Nick: Yeah. And I mean, we’ve done a fundraising just giving page, which has obviously gone off the charts.

Johnny: That exploded, didn’t it, With social media and online.

Nick: Yeah. But it just, I guess because I’ve been involved like you said earlier, from the age of 7 here, the whole community aspect can sometimes get a little bit diluted because I’m here every single day and you sometimes forget how important we are for that community when disaster.

Johnny: Well, how important you are to the community as well because look at the response and reaction was absolutely overwhelming. And I was just logging on watching the amount just go… go through the roof.

Nick: My granddad, actually, my granddad’s up in Scotland and he said he lives in Edinburgh, but he’s a season ticket holder.

Johnny: So ok.

Nick: Not such local community but he’s obviously lives up in Edinburgh. He buys a season ticket to support us, and he’ll come down to one game a year. But he was there exactly the same as I think so many people were just logging on, seeing what’s happening, refreshing the page and just seeing it climb and climb and climb. And it was, it was just incredible. And yeah, like you say it was…

Johnny:  And really humbling as well to see that for the club and see how valued and the community is looking to support you. You know, there were obviously lots of other people affected by that flooding as well, because we’ve really come back on the back of a really bad winter, haven’t we? We’ve had three big weather events across the Southwest. In Cornwall there was a rare red weather warning. When that came through we were really fortunate we have the sort of systems to be able to alert our residents and get a communication out before the government’s weather alert so they could check the weather. But it has a real impact with the power being down and obviously the recent flooding as well. So it’s absolutely devastating for the local farmers and the community. And we’re talking earlier, the young farmers are well represented within the rugby club where I am in Denver seven, we have a really strong farming community within the outlying villages, and the young farmers are very active there. And we got our Christmas veg box provided by a local young farmer. So it’s great again to be able to support the community and the farmers. But the Somerset levels have been absolutely devastated by this flooding. But it’s great to be here today to see that, you know, we’re back being able to use the venue and that’s in our sort of way supporting the club.

Nick: Thing is you say, it’s in a small way, but the rugby club here, we’re fortunate to have what we have and be able to provide to our juniors because of the conferencing. I mean, that is the club’s bread and butter, so.

Johnny: Is that one of your main income streams?

Nick: Yeah, that’s for sure. So, which is why actually the damage that’s been done and the cancellations downstairs and not be able to reallocate rooms and stuff around the place, it does impact us.

Johnny: I had no idea that had impacted you so much because you think about the physical damage, you know, you’ve got to dry the building out, you’ve got to then redecorate and all those innovations and you don’t necessarily think of the unintended consequences, the loss of revenue and how important that is then to the community in the youth section.

Nick: Well, this is, this is the thing, you know, yes, the building’s been damaged, but actually people have seen the photos out there and the pictures were just completely flooded. And you can’t have the kids going out there to play rugby on a Sunday when you know, it’s just a water park. However much they’d love that. We try to keep them off it. And they’re just…

Johnny: It’s alright if you’re a duck.

Nick: Yeah, exactly that. So we’re starting to get back now and yeah, the sooner we’re fully operational again, the better. So, we can get the kids running around and enjoying their Sundays, and have Grandma and grandad coming down for their coffee and a pasty on a Sunday and stuff like that. So yeah.

Johnny: When will the pitch be back up and running?

Nick: The first team had a game on Saturday, OK, and it held up really well. Obviously we don’t want to have 300 juniors running around on that one pitch on a Sunday.

Johnny: It’s just going to get churned up.

Nick: Yeah, exactly. So we need to try and make sure the whole site is basically

ready to go so they can come and run riot and throwing that everywhere.

Johnny: So yeah, Nick got to ask. So we talked about the club having 600 or so members, but I’d really like to understand what are the types of community activities the club does and how it supports.

Nick: Yeah, it’s interesting because we often have a discussion at the committee level and also in the office in terms of what we want to sort of do for the community every year. I know a lot of firms and businesses have their sort of charity of the year, but we don’t have a specific charity as such, but we try and offer as much support from really small things. We get inundated with requests for, you know, raffle items or auction lots, and it’s that small thing that shows that people have got an interest in having something from us.

Johnny: Yeah, that’s amazing.

Nick: And for us, we’re so happy to do that. So as soon as we get those sort of questions or people ask us if we can donate something, then, you know, as long as it’s local

and we feel…

Johnny: So you’re giving back to the local community as well and in terms of those supports, so it’s again it’s those connections, isn’t it

Nick: A 100%. And it’s the players that are involved with the senior stuff. We get involved with our sponsor partners and if they’re doing World Book Day, we’ve had a couple of players go out to the local schools and read a book to some of the primary schools.

Johnny: Ah, that’s amazing.

Nick: Which is amazing. And it’s just those sorts of things. We try and get involved as much as we possibly can and ultimately, you know, we are not-for-profit here so any money we do end up with at the end of the year goes back into, back into back into the pub and building, building the future for the next 150 years.

Johnny: That’s amazing and I think it’s really important, you know, for listeners that they can reach out to the club and that you can support their activities in different ways as well. And I love the outreach with the players within the local community. And I guess that’s the same with, you know, using the local suppliers as well and local business services. We said earlier, I think many of the suppliers that I see on and your sponsor boards or companies that we’re familiar with and quite a few of them are part of our supply chains as well. So, it’s great to see those connections.

Nick: I think just with that as well, obviously we, I know we spoke about it earlier about the just giving page and how amazing that was. But the stuff that people haven’t seen when you’re there and refreshing that just giving page was the amount of emails we had from local suppliers. We had a local landscaper who called us as soon as it happened and dropped off 20 sandbags.

Johnny: Wow!

Nick: And we had houses up the road coming to fill up their sandbags. You know, we’ve had painters decorate all sorts of people just offering their support. They’re just giving pages amazing. But actually the emails and the support from everyone has been incredible.

Johnny: Yeah, so whilst you know, that’s been a really adverse event, actually there’s some real positives that have come from it in a bizarre way and very humbling for the club as well to see that level of support in ways that you could possibly have imagined before that event.

Nick: No 100%. Well I did a small interview the day after it happened. I said that it went from absolutely disaster zone thinking how do we recover to this to the next day. Being like this is completely overwhelming. And that’s where I said, you know, you kind of lose track of how important we are for that community and how much people like us, I guess, you know, and how much we mean to them and how important this is to be here for the next 100 and 5200 years and so on.

Johnny: Yeah, absolutely. So we can’t come to rugby club without talking about some predictions. So Titans mid table at the moment. So what’s the season’s predictions then, Nick?

Nick: Season prediction. I think Titans will finish fourth in the league this year.

Johnny: Ok.

Nick: But I’ll put my neck on the line and say they’ll win the league next year. Wow, fantastic love the confidence.

Nick: Yeah, why not.

Johnny: Nick, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you to Taunton Rugby Club for hosting us today and thank you for your time as well. It’s been great just chatting through with you. I’ve really enjoyed it and learnt a lot. Learned a lot about the club and wish you and the club all the very best in the future.

Nick: Well, thank you very much for having me and yeah, really appreciate all your support and I look forward to catching up very soon.

Johnny: Pleasure. Thanks, Nick.