Most local people may have come to know Jason as one of the new owners of Grimsby Town Football Club, a part of a small team who are proving to put the community back into the heart of the club. However, Jason is also the Chair of Horizon Youth Zone, a charity for young people in the area to support them in finding their passion and purpose through leisure activities, hobbies, and enterprise and employability workshops. The site of the Horizon Youth Zone, which is a part of the Onside Youth Zones network, will be found in the heart of Grimsby town centre; works on the multi-million-pound state-of-the-art centre begin later this year.  As Co-Founder of Our Future, Jason is bringing resources and networks to citizens to create long-term positive change, building joy and power in the local area.

“It’s a calling, to recognise how your identity is tied to a sense of place and is core to who you are. I think that was forgotten in the town for a few years, and we’ve started to realise that in a global world, you need to look upwards and out but do that from a point of solidarity and community first. Traditionally, as a town, we tilt the narrative towards the past. And we do need to hold it proudly as our identity, but we can do that while leaning more towards the future.

“For me, places like the Grimsby Town Football Club, Horizon Youth Zone, the work we are doing with Our Future, is rooted in a deep philosophy that we strive for connection and, to bring it back full circle to our sense of place again, we reach that through our civic institutions and the common life we share.

“Grimsby is, and always has been, the centre of my identity and my family. Now, it’s really rewarding to reaffirm those connections and make many new ones in the place I am really proud to be from. On a personal level, I’ve really been enjoying the past couple of years and I’m learning a lot.

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