For a charitable organisation that has been helping support UK motorsport for over 45 years, the British Motorsport Training Trust has not exactly been a well-known name. Every year it gives grants totalling six-figure sums to fund training and safety initiatives, and yet it has been operating somewhat behind the scenes. Until now, that is.
A rebrand to become the British Motorsport Trust, in addition to highlighting its work outside of the training sphere, is being used to help raise awareness of its important duties and enable it to assist more clubs and organisations.
“Originally the trust was set up to train people, particularly in safety,” explains current chairman Rod Parkin, an experienced clerk of the course and steward. “But the remit has, for quite a while now, extended beyond that so we thought taking ‘training’ out of the title was appropriate, so people don’t think we’re only giving grants for training. British Motorsport Trust gives us a very wide remit.
“The rebrand was also to make sure people are aware of us. Like with other charities, we can only spend money if we bring it in, so we’re trying to increase awareness of what we do to see if we can attract some more funding.”
Although training may no longer be part of the organisation’s name, education remains one of its three core pillars – it’s been an essential element of the trust since it was founded in 1977. Back then, very little training of volunteers and officials was carried out, whereas nowadays the trust helps governing body Motorsport UK deliver a comprehensive national programme.
“Motorsport UK have invested a lot of money in training people so they can deliver training courses and we support them to enable that to flourish,” says Parkin. “But we also give grants to individual organisations that want to run a training day, for example on being the first on a scene of a crash.”
Parkin says helping to support such in-person events is still invaluable in the post-pandemic world where so much is now carried out online, although he does believe the virtual gatherings have an important role to play as well, particularly given their potential to help a “wider audience”.
Source: Autosport