Aspire Wrestling Alliance is Derby's premier wrestling company and has recieved numerous awards for their community-focused work. As they are now approaching their 3rd Anniversary, we figured we'd reach out to Robert Shade (the owner and founder of Aspire) and get hos thoughts on this:
"My thoughts are probably different to others about what reaching 3 years means. Having founded Aspire and been the main person ever since responsible for the day to day largely behind the scenes stuff, I am aware of how many obstacles we have had to overcome some of which are not known outside of the office.
There was a period of time prior to us opening when myself and Mark, a young man who deserves far more recognition than he receives as the co-founder of Aspire, were in the building for a number of months helping to transform it from the building site with a leaking roof and 3 foot high weeds in the garden to what people see it as today.
Whilst we went through that stage there were hurdles to leap over, many of them to even open the doors, once we opened the doors, we came very close more than once to financially folding, we started this project with £0 in the account and had to generate money for our running costs ourselves from day one. This was only achieved due to incredible generosity of those around us allowing us to survive.
We were still fighting literally day to day for survival until several months in, to think we have moved from that to where we are now effectively in just over two years is incredible.
To realise we are closing in on Year 3 is beyond belief for something that started as a pipe dream wrote out one weekend back in the summer of 2014.
Other people offering their thoughts on this will talk more about the Wrestling, that is cool, so to offer a different perspective I shall talk about the non-wrestling side.
We have gone from two people plus a trainer running Aspire to the dozens and dozens of volunteers we now have, without whom this growth would never have happened, we are able to run two often sold out shows a month, we have many people progressing through onto shows, training numbers are now fantastic and the day to day operations Wrestling wise and Community Activity wise now pretty much run themselves allowing myself to focus on building Aspire and Mark to ensure that we continually meet all legal and funding deadlines, dry stuff yes but without there would be no Aspire.
As a result we have won a number of awards, we have Children In Need funding, we have featured on BBC1 twice and been on the Radio on several occasions, we have also received funding from a number of other places to allow us to do work such as our summer playscheme and I am particularly proud of our partnership now with the Police working in 14 schools every month and helping to play a big part in transforming young peoples future and so grateful to those from Aspire who go in and make that possible.
The plans for the future that I am aware of already are incredibly exciting, we have the potential to grow considerably from now, just hope it all comes together.
So for me hitting 3 years is so gratifying, so many have made so many sacrifices to make Aspire work, I shall never forget that, I see people who would never have met otherwise making strong friendships, I see happiness on peoples faces that would not have happened otherwise, I see people saying how much Aspire has helped them cope with issues that they would struggle with otherwise and also I see how people in Derby are viewing Wrestling with different eyes, the Council, the Police, major supermarkets, Derby Homes and many others now understand what Wrestling does and we have so much support.
I also love the food bank we run and how that helps to bring out previously socially isolated people, a big target is for some major mental health support work moving ahead.
Three Years means this is working and we have formed what is known widely as the Aspire Family, it is only the beginning but I have learnt how wonderful people can be and that is 3 years of positive learning!"
You can read more on Aspire, as well as get notifications on their upcoming shows by visiting their Facebook page over at https://www.facebook.com/aspirewrestlingalliance/
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