Wooden Spoon Society

Celebrating 20 years of supporting disadvantaged children and young people

6 million distributed to children and young people, 1,000 organised events and 20,000 ties worn, all in the last 20 years and all achieved by volunteers working on behalf of Wooden Spoon Society.

It all began on that fateful day in Dublin on March 19th 1983 when England’s Five Nations season ended in disaster with defeat by Ireland leaving them languishing at the bottom of the table.

A group of English supporters were presented with a Wooden Spoon by their Irish compatriots to mark this historic occasion. On returning home the proposal to play golf for the spoon attracted the interest of fellow English supporters. 127 people attended that golf day at Farnham and by the end of the evening £8450 had been raised. The funds were cashed in for a minibus purchased for the Park Special Needs School in Aylesbury. And so the charity was born.

Over the last 20 years the number and variety of events have increased as have the number of supporters and participants. Spoon now has patronage from the four home unions and royal patronage from Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal.

Today there are 30 regional committees and three national committees, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and more than 7,500 subscribing members. It has become a national charity but one working very much at a local level. All funds raised locally are spent locally with national fund raising supporting theses funds £1 for £1.

Our strength and purpose however have been to convert the funds derived from our rugby and other activities to benefit children and young people disadvantaged in life.

We have supported work that takes on cancer, cystic fibrosis and autism. We have tried to have a positive impact on disability in all its forms and comforted the sick and needy whenever we have been able to do so, We have assisted children and young people who are disadvantaged socially, physically or mentally

We have met all these foes with good humour and much enjoyment. We have created events and activities that have challenged our physical frailties and made great demands on our sporting and social prowess. We are driven by a collective ambition to see Wooden Spoon Society continue to grow in stature and thereby continue to have a positive impact on disadvantaged children and young people throughout the United Kingdom.

In this our 20th Anniversary, we aim to celebrate in style and in doing so we hope to raise more funds for our regional projects.

If you want to be involved contact the Boof at the club.