Bury Broncos 'Community Sport Hub'

Help us grow!

'The Paddock' is home to Bury Broncos - we aim for it to be a child friendly and relaxed home attracting more and more children to play rugby league.  We aim to bring the 1930's built cricket Pavilion into a fit for purpose use as a community hub, with a kitchen and better facilities so that it can be a real home to the Bury Broncos as we grow!

What we are doing and why...

Bury Broncos are one of the fastest growing rugby league clubs around. Formed in 2008, and with juniors only getting underway in 2012, we ran 2 adult teams, U18s, U16s, U14s, U11s, U9s, and U7s in 2014! Our aim is to keep growing and encouraging more and more teams to form.

Homeless at birth, it took the Broncos a number of years to find a home from which we could grow. Eventually, in 2011 we were welcomed by Philips High School, who are the perfect hosts.

On the Philips High site sits an old cricket Pavilion which had previously fallen into disrepair. Although improved some years ago – it isn’t ideal! We want to remove some walls to have more space, add a kitchen so we can serve some drinks and snacks (and raise some all important revenue!) and generally tidy the place up so we can use it every week.

Why we want to do this is simple - we want more kids playing rugby league! Adding teams as quickly as we have is fantastic - but we want to get more and more, younger and younger kids involved.  

We're already planning the new 'cubs' side for 2015 - Broncos launching cubs for 2015

Our aim is to keep growing!  So we need a base to grow from...which is where your support comes in!

We have been quoted over £21,000 to renovate the Pavilion and do the works which we clearly cannot afford as a new club where every penny goes on new kit, new coaches, and encouraging new players! When you grow as quickly as we have - it doesn't leave much cash in the kitty for much else other than the playing essentials!

So, we are planning do a volunteer led refurbishment!

Much of the work will be done by us! At weekends, a spare hour here or there, or when people are off work.  We will paint the walls, tidy the grounds, and replace fallen tiles! We think we can bring the costs down - to less than £10,000 with our approach and the commitment of our members and fans!

But we do need some specialist help!

We need some walls removing and the kitchen fitting.  To get technical for a second (and reading from a second quote!), we need to "remove internal wall, block some doorways, install serving hatches, supply/fit a kitchen, renew plaster as required and fit the building with lights" - all stuff we cannot do.  Based on a phased build, this will cost £7,600 before VAT.

And we'll need to have the equipment for our volunteers to work!

As a volunteer led project we need to give the volunteers the equipment they need! We think it will cost about £1,500 to buy the paint (and the brushes of course), as well as the bits and bobs required to tidy the place up from top to bottom.  We have plumbers, roofers, electricians and more in our ranks - and we can all hold a brush - so we want to just get on and get the job done!

What you're contributing to!

You will be supporting one of the fastest growing, friendliest, and well run clubs around! We have won District Rugby League Club of the Year awards, the North West Rugby League Steve Prescott Award for Community Engagement, website of Year, and been nominated for Bury sports-club of the year, while on the pitch, we've won District cups while our U18s are current league champions!  You'll be investing in success by supporting our work...

You will be directly helping new kids start on a path to Super League (we hope!) and making sure that Bury becomes a rugby league town and the Broncos, a sustainable club.  No one played rugby league in Bury before 2008 - now 200 people, aged 7 to over 50, play every week, every summer! You can say you've been part of the Bury Broncos story! 

So you know!

We've been planning this a while! We need to raise about £10,000 in total and we already have a £500 pledge, while Bury Council have approved a £1,000 grant.  We have some other funding applications in and will raid the club reserves for some funds if required but our crowd-funding target is the £3,500 we'll desperately need to get the project underway.  Your support - genuinely - will be what makes this project happen! 

Find out more about the Broncos...

The Bury Broncos web-site is one of the best around - winner of North West RL web-site of year in 2014.  We're regularly in the top 10 clubs visited so any support you provide will definitely get you noticed!  If you want to know more about the Broncos - just browse the site!