Ian Straw, Headteacher of The Forest School, Comptons Ln, Horsham at the opening of the new all-weather pitch with special guest Gordon Greer of Brighton and Hove Albion FC.
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00:00Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon for our opening. It's really
00:04important for us, one of the things that we're really passionate about our school
00:09is that you know we refer to ourselves as the Forrest family and everyone being
00:14a member of our Forrest family and part of our community and that's really
00:17important to us that so many of you are able to come here today and join us for
00:22our opening. As always with these things I want to say some particular thank yous
00:27and I will start with a huge thank you first of all to both Ben and to Gordon
00:33who have joined us today from Brighton and Hove Albion for the opening. Ben is
00:39somebody who I've got to know at Brighton and Hove Albion and Gordon has very very
00:44kindly at the last minute stepped into Paul Barber's shoes and has joined us
00:51today and has just come off the back of delivering what I was told by Mr.
00:56Parsons is an absolutely inspirational assembly to lots of our kids here at
01:02this school and not only just about football but about life in general about
01:07the importance of keeping going through the good and the bad times so it's
01:11amazing assembly and lots of really interesting questions raised by the kids
01:14as well not just who did you play for which is probably the type of question I
01:19might come up with but lots of really well thought-out questions. So a huge
01:23thank you to the pair of you for being here today we're really honoured to have
01:26you and actually we're really honoured to have lots of you here today as part
01:30of our Forest family and as interested guests and people that follow our school.
01:35You might know over the past six years we've done a lot to our school we've
01:40been working hard to make it an inspirational place to be a 1950s
01:46building that maybe doesn't feel quite so much a 1950s building and one of the
01:50things that I'm particularly passionate about is giving our kids opportunities
01:54that they wouldn't maybe get in other secondary schools and hopefully you'll
01:58see that as you go out onto the Astro later on. We've been doing this for the
02:02past six years and there's some very important people in the room that I'd
02:05like to thank that have been behind us every step of the way while we've been
02:09doing that incredible journey that we've been on. So Graham Olway who is stood
02:15over there and Lee Hunnigan I've sort of spoken to today already but actually
02:20from pretty much my first week in this school Graham and Lee have been on the
02:25phone on the other end of the phone having an ear bashing from me about
02:29leaky roofs about things not going the way we want it to and I have to say
02:35they've been incredibly supportive for us in terms of allowing us to move on.
02:40I'd also like to thank Jeremy so Jeremy Quinn who was the local MP up until a
02:47few months ago but has also been incredibly supportive and again at the
02:52other end of emails maybe not so much on the phone but at the other end of emails
02:55and things and has helped us push through lots of the things that we've
02:59done. There are people who are not here today such as Councillor Russell etc who
03:05unfortunately aren't able to make it but they have been equally as instrumental
03:09to us as those people. I'd also like to thank really very kindly for what you're
03:18about to see when we go outside. Sophie from West Sussex, Graham and Boonme from
03:24Atkins Realis and Will from Velocity Sports who have been working incredibly
03:30hard really closely with us over the past few years I will say but really over
03:37the past year and a half or so to get the project to where it is today and
03:42it's been it's been really good to meet with you and have your support pushing
03:46everything through the ups and the downs but here we are at an up which is
03:50fantastic so thank you so much. I'd also there's a lot of thanks here I'm afraid
03:55I'd also like to thank our PE department because you might think that they've
04:00got this wonderful facility out there and they should be really grateful but
04:05actually it's been a lot of heartache because they lost their facility for a
04:10long amount of time. For about a year we didn't have a field that they could
04:17use because you can imagine all of the heavy lifting equipment etc to put this
04:21thing in and so they were they were having to make do with our sports hall
04:24our gym and a bit of our fields up round the top of the school with it and losing
04:30the vast majority of what they would call their classroom and they've been
04:34incredibly supportive so I'd like to thank Matt and the whole team for that
04:37and I'd absolutely be remiss without saying a huge thank you to Paula and to
04:43Caroline and to Paula's team and to Caroline and her team for all of the
04:48work that they have done behind the scenes. Caroline likes to say I'm the one
04:52that comes up with the ideas but Caroline is the one that drives it
04:55through so I might say I want this nice Astro and Lee and Graham and lots of
05:00other people give us the money and allow us to do it but it's Caroline who is at
05:04the other end of the phone and is the one that sorts out all the issues and
05:07Paula is the one that works with all the teams so I'm incredibly grateful to all
05:11of those people. I'm sure I've missed people out in that but you are all
05:16incredibly important to us and lastly I'd like to thank all of those of you
05:21that are here today to support our school in terms of you might have hired
05:26our facility and you are here today to witness our grand opening as the
05:31founding hirers of our new Astro pitch. You might be here as local head
05:37teachers supporting us because your primary children come up to us and you
05:41work very closely with our school. You might be here as the principal of the
05:45local college who sees some of our kids come to you. You might be the local MP
05:50who is I'm sure going to look after us in the future but whoever you are you
05:55are incredibly important to us and I am so delighted and humbled that you're
05:59here with us today to spend our day with us. I'm going to leave it there in a
06:04few minutes we're going to go out we've got some really snazzy scissors for
06:07Gordon. We are going to go out and open the Astro officially unfortunately
06:20because of water neutrality laws and believe it or not FIFA we haven't had
06:25the final sign off from FIFA yet or the water neutrality so we were fully
06:30expecting to be opening and being able to use our Astro from today but
06:34unfortunately that is not the case. I know that Sophie and everybody
06:38behind the scenes is trying very hard to get it through as soon as they possibly
06:42can but believe it or not FIFA don't walk to our drumbeat. Unfortunately they
06:47make their own rules and who am I to argue with them. So unfortunately the
06:53Astro won't be opening you won't be seeing any games on it today but we will
06:56show you we will take you out there for you to have a quick look around the
07:00facility that we have. So before we do that though I would just like to ask
07:04Gordon to say a couple of words for a minute or two about his experience. To be
07:10honest it's been a privilege to be here today to see the school I think the
07:13school is a fantastic facility for all the young kids. I've been surprised how
07:18much space that they've got, the kids have got, the facilities they've got
07:25it's really good and I was speaking to Ted and Toby earlier on you know they love it
07:28and I think speaking earlier the results have been really good. For me as a
07:34sports person I've been privileged throughout my whole life to be playing
07:38team sport and the value that's attached to playing team sport I've learned so
07:43much throughout my life being a sports person and hopefully this facility will
07:48help future generation to come through and maybe one day Captain Brighton or go
07:53on to bigger and better things. So as I say I just want to thank you guys for
07:57being here, thanks for supporting the school and that's all I've got to say.
08:02Thank you very much.
08:03Brilliant, thank you.
08:09I declare this facility open.