Insurance broker Pound Gates have joined forces with six other local businesses to establish the Ipswich Sporting Lunch Club.

The aim is to raise vital funding for the charity SportsAid and help young sports people from Suffolk become Britain’s next generation of Olympians and Paralympians.

Over four decades, SportsAid has raised and donated more than £50 million to the future of British sport, helping many of the country’s best known sporting heroes to achieve their ambitions. So successful have they been in supporting the right athletes at the right time that at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, almost two-thirds of the British team were former recipients of SportsAid's support. These athletes won 20 Olympic and 27 Paralympic gold medals between them.

Rob Thacker from Pound Gates said, “Young athletes with huge potential are at risk of dropping out of their sports because of the lack of recognition they receive and the huge financial pressures they are under.  We want to support these young role models and help them fulfil their potential.”

To mark the launch of the Lunch Club, representatives from each of the seven founding businesses were joined at Wherstead Park on 31 March by five young up and coming athletes from Suffolk. Each athlete was presented with a SportsAid grant in recognition of their achievements to date and potential to progress and compete at the very highest levels in the future.

The inaugural lunch will be held at Wherstead Park on Thursday 24 September with special guest speaker Geoff Miller, OBE. Geoff is a former England Test cricketer and is arguably the best cricket raconteur in the country.

Picture:  David Collins (L) and Rob Thacker from Pound Gates with five up and coming athletes from Suffolk