Events

Dagenham & Redbridge FC

30 January 2007

SRTRC's first event with Dagenham & Redbridge FC was also our first event with a current Conference team. The club made us feel very welcome and we enjoyed a great event. 150 young people of a variety of ages attended from Barking & Dagenham and Redbridge borough schools. A host of agencies helped to organise the event and attendance of the young people and take part in the day; including Barking & Dagenham Council, Redbridge Council, South Eastern Regional TUC, Regional NUT and The Metropolitan Police.

It was a very impressive panel in attendance too, featuring SRTRC patron Warren Barton, Dagenham & Redbridge players Anwar Uddin and Danny Foster, Fiona Bevan of Barking & Dagenham Council, Alan Weinberg Leader of Redbridge Council, Jon Cruddas MP for Dagenham, Ed Blissett from the GMB, Stephen Thompson of Dagenham & Redbridge FC and representing SRTRC, Ged Grebby, Kieron Brady and Kim Burns.

The event was chaired by Kim and after introducing short speeches from Jon Cruddas, The Leader of Redbridge Council and Fiona Bevan, Ged introduced the SRTRC DVD, which was received well by the audience. There then followed an excellent Question and Answer session with young members of the audience asking questions of the panel about racism. The club had kindly donated an autographed shirt, which was given away to the person who asked the "best" question. Kieron had the unenviable task of selecting the best question. The Q&A helped to ensure that everybody left the event with a positive anti-racist message presented to them. After the Q&A, an autograph session followed and Ged did some interviews with local TV, newspapers and radio stations.

After such an enjoyable and effective event, we hope to organise more events with the club in future years. SRTRC would like to thank all of the people who attended and spoke and the following people for their help in organising the event: Stephen Thompson, Chris and Tony (D&R FC), Jimmy Maravala and Bill Gent from Redbridge Council, Fiona Bevan, Gillian Perendes and Dominic Byrne from Barking & Dagenham Council and Laurie Heselden from SERTUC.