National award for Tavistock Athletic Club

The amazing restoration work of Tavistock Athletic Club has been recognised by England Athletics, as TAC picked up the Community Project of the Year award.

This was in recognition of the incredible work with Tavistock College to get the track repaired after fire damage, enabling the club to restart training and competition activities. TAC were represent at the ceremony in Exeter by Alistair Kinsey, Dene Medland, Sheila Houghton and Martin Exley-Deane.

At the event, Kinsey accepted the award on behalf of the club, he said: “There are so many people to thank, it’s taken our team eight years to get where we are with our relationship with the College.

“It took eight years to form the club and create a charity. We’ve grown in size with nearly 400 members and so many volunteers involved.

“In the future, a clubhouse is next. We’ve got the security of the track, which is our track for our members, and the next ambition is to develop a clubhouse that will be a focal point for the club and our community.

“There are so many spin-offs from a clubhouse and it doesn’t have to be just about athletics and running, it’s about the community and how we can all come together.

“After the fire, if we didn’t think Tavistock, as a community, loved and supported our club, we knew within five minutes of social media going into overdrive, as we had an outpouring of support from current and past members.

“We had financial support from so many clubs, individuals and organisations, some of whom we didn’t even know about it. The fire took place on the Saturday and the assessor was down on the Monday. There were never any qualms about rebuilding the track for the community.

“In disaster adversity, you realise the support of everyone, and it was very humbling.”