We support a membership of around 140 independent voluntary youth groups, Boys’ Own clubs and grassroots sports clubs. We provide diversionary activities for more than fifteen thousand 11-19 year olds and advice for over 1,000 volunteers.
Set up in 1939 as part of the Boys’ Club Movement and deeply involved with the development of Youth Football and Youth Boxing, we remain true to our roots by supporting independent youth groups. At 78 years old, the words of our founders still ring true today, that “the best antidote to the gangster spirit is the club under wise leadership in which its members learn self-discipline & unselfishness for the sake of the rest.”
We help the amazing volunteers who run our member clubs to ensure that they are sustainable in the long term. We help communities to set up and run new youth provision and work with local partners to provide the best possible support.
We provide an extensive program of activities and events to create opportunities for young people aged 11-19 to develop their character, enhance their skills, encourage good health and wellbeing, promote good citizenship, and build their own bright future.
We have at our core an adventurous ‘can-do’ spirit, maintaining the ethos that young people develop positive skills and social responsibility by taking on challenges together. Therefore we head to the mountains of England as often as possible with groups from our clubs in the flatlands of Essex.