A mini and youth section were introduced once the
club was well established which now sees up to 300
youngsters turn up raring to go at the club most Sunday
mornings. And so it was when David Strettle and Ben
Ransom arrived on the chilly Sunday morning after their
team had beaten Sale Sharks the day before.
The aspiring rugby hopefuls spanned all ages from the
U6s to U16s and took part in a two-hour session where
some groups experienced a ‘hands on’ interactive
training session with David and Ben. Others had the
opportunity to meet the players and ask questions. An
always popular signing/photo session took place at the
close of ‘play’.
“
…it really broadens the learning
experience and gives our team
access to insights that it would
have been impossible to develop
in any other way.
”
Don Barrell,
Academy Manager, Saracens
Sanlam were delighted to be able to arrange for two
Premiership Rugby players to attend the mini and youth
training session at Underley Park and support their local
club in this way. Kirkby Lonsdale has a fantastic mini
and youth rugby set up and they were thrilled to be able
to support both the club and the local community by
sharing access to the Saracens Club, which is sponsored
by Sanlam.
Kirkby Lonsdale is a very long way
from Allianz Park but having had
the chance to meet and chat to
both David and Ben I’m sure they’ll
have won over some new fans for
Saracens! Sanlam plans to expand
its involvement with local rugby
clubs as well as with schools rugby.
Its relationship with Saracens is
more than might be imagined. They
work very closely with the club
when it comes to looking at the
development of their staff, because
that is of course what rugby players
are in reality. Neil De Kock, Saracens
scrum half, has made regular visits
to Sanlam’s London offices to take
part in work experience and to get
a taste of what working in the world
of private wealth management is
like.
Tim Streather and Ben Ransom are also building a
relationship with the company with Tim looking at
taking the necessary qualifications (and there are a fair
few) to enable him to work within the environment.
Alison Barwell, head of human resources at Sanlam,
works closely with David Jones at Saracens who is a
key driver for their Personal Development Programme.
A recent exciting initiative has seen the two organisations
join forces to involve their employees in a new training
programme designed to accelerate the development of
leadership capabilities in sportsmen and businessmen.
As far as Sanlam is concerned this is one of a number of
initiatives it is running as part of a longer term strategy
to be an “Employer of Choice” in the UK.
The programme, which is run by the Foundation for
Leadership through Sport (FLS) (www.flsport.net) is
following a unique ‘action learning’ strategy run over
four months. Its point of difference is that it brings
business and sportsmen together to learn from one
another as well as drawing on experts from other areas
such as the military.
Vic Luck of FLS, explains:
“This is a superb opportunity for sports and business
figures to learn side by side, in a peer-to-peer way
and so accelerate the development of leadership skills
that are crucial to success in both sport and business.
By bringing together individuals from different
organisations, much cross sector learning is enabled to
help build and accelerate leadership skills.
Make no mistake; this is a serious, structured ‘learning
through action’ programme, underpinned by practice
in the workplace. This goes far deeper than events
where you hear sportsmen share anecdotes on the
secrets of how to win or get to the top. It focuses on
immediate application in the workplace to improve team
performance as well as develop leadership capabilities
for the future.”