For the third consecutive year Leeds Rhinos Foundation has welcomed a new member of staff to work with their charity on a year’s secondment from their partners, Leeds Building Society.
The partnership has seen Leeds Building Society support the official charity of Leeds Rhinos, by seconding a member of their staff for a twelve-month period. Following two previous successful placements since 2014, Keiran Smith, is the latest Society employee who will join the Leeds based charity to work on their educational and fundraising projects.
Keiran, has been employed with Leeds Building Society as a Customer Advisor since 2014, after graduating from Hertfordshire University with a Creative arts and Marketing degree. He applied for the opportunity to join Leeds Rhinos Foundation to enhance his skills and understanding of a different organisation and the charity sector.
As part of his secondment Keiran will be able to work with the charity on a wide variety of subjects. Since May he has supported the educational projects in Try Zone, such as ‘Work Club’ which aids local people looking for work, ‘Off the Bench’, which is designed to bridge the gap between personal life skills and gaining employment for teenagers not in education or training and ‘Digital Me’, a volunteer project for secondary school children.
Alongside this he has been able to develop his other areas of interest such as marketing, by working on social media campaign for the charity’s ‘Run with the Rhinos’ fundraising initiative.
Speaking about this secondment Keiran said:
“This been a great opportunity for me and I am enjoying being part of the Leeds Rhinos Foundation team.
"With many of the projects I’m working on I have been taken out of my comfort zone, but that has been the best way for me to learn. I am confident that I am acquiring new skills that will benefit me when I return to Leeds Building Society.
“Supporting the education projects has been particularly rewarding and it is great to see that what you are doing is helping to make positive changes in people’s lives. This year the charity will be launching a new creative arts project and hopefully I will be able to bring some of my own experience from my degree to enhance this.
“I would like to thanks Leeds Building Society and Leeds Rhinos Foundation for offering me this opportunity. It has been a very rewarding experience so far and I am looking forward to the remainder of my time with the charity.”
Dan Busfield, Leeds Rhinos Foundation’s Partnership Manager, said the secondment placement has been hugely valuable for the charity.
“Our last three secondment placements have all been very successful during their time with us and we are grateful to Leeds Building Society for supporting our charity in this way,” he said.
“All three of the secondments have brought something new to our organisation and have been a fantastic addition to our team.
Keiran has been a massive help to the staff at Try Zone and has fully embraced being part of our team, and even took part in the Leeds 10k for our charity. We hope that he will enjoy working in this new environment and will develop new skills that benefit him and Leeds Building Society following the completion of the placement year.”
If you would like more information on how you can support the work of Leeds Rhinos Foundation contact davide.longo@leedsrhinosfoundation.org