Our Story
From a football pitch to a growing network. How community need shaped what we've become.
Progress Network didn't start with a master plan or a boardroom vision. It started with what most grassroots organisations start with: people seeing a need and doing something about it.
St Leonards needed more for its young people. Families needed spaces where their children could play, learn, grow, and belong without barriers of cost or experience. So football sessions began. Children showed up. Families connected. Something real was growing.
In 2020, two community initiatives - Sparks Football Club and Progress Network - came together and formalised as a Community Interest Company. Not because bureaucracy is exciting, but because structure would let us do more, reach further, and serve better.
Onwards and Upwards
Our motto captures how we think: everything is progress. Showing up is progress. Trying something new is progress. Asking for help is progress. We're not chasing perfection - we're celebrating continual improvement, one small step at a time.
It's Kaizen in action: steady, community-led growth that responds to what people actually need, not what we think they should want.
Growing Through Listening
We didn't plan to become more than football. But young people needed more than one outlet. Some loved sport. Others needed their hands in soil. Others had voices that needed recording studios to be heard properly.
So we expanded - not because of grand strategy, but because our community showed us what was missing:
Green Arena Gardening Club
Emerged when we saw young people disconnected from nature and food. A neglected dumping ground became a garden. Now children grow vegetables and understand where food comes from.
Kings Rd Music Studio
Is being built because St Leonards has talent with nowhere professional to develop it. By early 2026, local artists will have the space and equipment they deserve.
What Hasn't Changed
Despite growth, we're still who we were at the beginning:
- Community-led: We respond to need, not impose solutions
- Accessible: Free or low-cost, welcoming to all abilities and backgrounds
- Grassroots: Built by a community who care
- Real: We're authentic and occasionally messy, like real community always is
Where We Are Now
Today, over 200 families engage with Progress Network annually. Thousands of young people have been part of what we do. We've transformed dumping grounds into gardens, launched programmes on shoestring budgets, and proven that when community shows up for itself, real change happens.
The Path Ahead
Recently, new leadership has brought fresh energy and vision. We're building a music studio, expanding reach, and thinking bigger - while staying rooted in what's always mattered: young people discovering their potential and families finding their community.
We don't know exactly what Progress Network will look like in five years. That's the point. We'll grow where community need takes us, launch what young people tell us they're missing, and continue building something that belongs to St Leonards, not just operates in it.
What we do know: we'll keep moving onwards and upwards, one young person, one programme, one small victory at a time.
This is grassroots community building. This is what happens when people care more about impact than credit.
This is Progress Network.
Be part of our story.
Whether you join a programme, volunteer your time, or support our work - you help write the next chapter.