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7 years of fun, friendship and personal achievement
Our Story
Keen2Go's story is the story of its members: their personalities, ambitions and individual journeys.
We have met some unforgettable characters along the way and are proud to have played a supporting role in some inspiring adventures.
2018
Robbie founded Keen2Go in the summer of 2018. After 10 years experience at a local charity, he identified a clear lack of social opportunities for people with autism and learning disabilities in the local area and set to work to change that.
He sketched out the plans for our first groups and sessions in partnership with those who would go on to attend. Some of these early sessions are still going strong in our current programme, though bigger in scale, and some of our first members continue to attend to this day.
Keen2Go made the Phoenix Centre its home for the Monday Club; enjoyed Swimming, Dinner and Disco on a Tuesday night; and saw two very small groups enjoy trips out during Thursday and Friday daytimes. We visited Wembley to watch England play before rounding the year off with a festive invite to Crystal Palace FC's Christmas party to celebrate a fantastic first couple of months of Keen2Go.
We saw friendship groups blossom and our community of parents and carers grow closer and stronger. We were proud to see the inclusive and welcoming way our members introduced those just starting out on their Keen2Go journeys and were privileged to turn their amazing ideas into reality.
Our support team grew with the onboarding of new members and we saw our first member-led interviews take place. From day one Keen2Go has been the members' service and we have ensured that their voice echos through the organisation from top to bottom. It is only right that they have their say on our recruitment process once candidates pass the first interview stage.
The highlight of the year was taking a member on the trip of a lifetime to Paris, following several months of planning, working on language skills and embracing French cuisine. It was an incredible time that will live long in the memory.
2019
2020
We were enjoying real momentum - new sessions, new staff, more members, then it all came screeching to a halt when the COVID lockdowns came into effect.
We were acutely aware of the confusing, isolating and otherwise harmful effects that the lockdowns could have on our members. Whilst we were unable to see them in person, we ran a regular schedule of Zoom calls - including daily catch ups, quiz nights and baking challenges.
We created the Three Nations Challenge to keep our members active and engaged, and as a team we combined to complete 617 miles of exercise to take us to Edinburgh via London and Cardiff!
We got through it together as a community, getting back to our in person sessions as soon as we could and on reflection are stronger today for how we managed this difficult time.
Early this year Robbie won the Herb Chinzou Award for contribution to disability services at the Sutton Community Awards. He was nominated by a parent amongst nearly 300 other nominees across the eight awards categories.
Our community's strength in response to the challenge of the lockdowns was cited amongst the reasons for the award, and having shown that we were committed to going above and beyond for those we support, we emerged with lots of new members and reinvigorated to continue increasing our reach and impact.
Our first Keen Teens session began to take shape on a Wednesday evening as we extended our service to provide an age specific group for under 16s. We are so proud to have seen some incredible friendship groups develop and watch some of our early Teens members move on to our adult programme. Fast forward to today and we now welcome five Keen Teens groups across our weekly schedule.
2021
Now with a strong track record providing services in Sutton, and recognised for outstanding feedback and delivering countless positive outcomes, we were invited to bid for services in the Borough of Richmond.
Following a successful tendering process, we were excited to begin a weekly after-school club for 8 to 18 year olds at the Richmond Library Annexe. Modelled on the success of our Sutton Keen Teens service, we hit the ground running with games, themed nights and plenty of trips out - including arcades, trampolining and dinner.
Also this year we were proud to sponsor local boxer Dean Gardner as he made his professional debut. Dean had given so much of his time to delivering boxing coaching and fitness bootcamps for our members and everyone at Keen2Go was excited to support Dean as he began his professional journey with a win.
2022
With our management team growing and a long identified need to improve our offering for the wider community, we delivered our first Festive Funday for members, parents, siblings, and for those outside of Keen2Go.
We have always wanted to be in a position to deliver such events and believe that we need to support our families as well as our members for us to be the best service we can be. We are thrilled to now be in a position where we can focus more energy on these occasions.
Attendees enjoyed a variety of themed games, hot food, tombola and raffle, and received a present from Father Christmas.
Elsewhere, our regular service continued to develop with sessions now taking place both daytime and evening Monday to Friday, with a session on Saturdays and more weekends away taking place throughout the year.
2023
2024
Following a restructuring of short breaks for Sutton's children and young people with disabilities, we were invited to submit a tender for the new framework.
We were thrilled to win the tender and be given the opportunity to grow our Keen Teens offering - ensuring more young people in the borough had the opportunity to benefit from accessing our service.
The process invited a group of local parents to review all the submissions and we received exceptional feedback on our vision of the service as a community working in partnership towards shared objectives. One parent commented that reading our submission felt like receiving a warm hug.
We took over a Saturday group that became our first age specific weekend session, careful to ensure continuity for existing members whilst transitioning them into the Keen2Go family.
We arrive in 2025 bolstered by the depths of experience we have acquired over the years and spurred on by the evergreen enthusiasm of our members.
Our sessions continue to be split into different groups running concurrently to ensure that we remain person-centred and that growth doesn't negatively impact our members.
Over the summer period we delivered on over 1,000 individual session bookings in the space of just six weeks - with members enjoying activities such as the Wimbledon Tennis Museum, Flight Club and Brighton beach.
We were proud to round off the summer with Fun on the Field, a community funday delivered in partnership with the Change Foundation and the Fantastic Freddie Foundation. Everyone had a great day and we can't wait to work with such fantastic organisations again in the future.
