Sport England: Active Together has provided £9,000 of match funding
Year Round Tennis at Carlton, Southport
Southport, Merseyside, United Kingdom
Aim
We're looking to upgrade from shale to all weather courts so that our community can play tennis and thrive all year round.
Who are we?
We are a friendly, sociable tennis club in the heart of Birkdale,Southport and we have been here for exactly 100 years this year! 
We want to ensure we are still around for the next 100 years. We are fundraising so that we can upgrade our facilities by offering many more hours of tennis - to many more people in our community! Can you help us?
Why are we crowdfunding?
We are known for our shale courts, if you know anything about tennis and you're thinking Roland Garos, think again!. These are our DIY courts, during summer we continuously maintain them to keep the moss and grass at bay. In winter time the moss together with the frost makes the surfaces treacherous and we have to abandon them. Early in the year just a few members (mostly the 3 amigos; Clive, Mick and Mull - aged 190+ years between them) start the work to reinstate them again, removing the old shale with new and rolling them again..and again..and again. Come October, the courts yield to the winter clime again and the cycle continues. All of this means we can only use the courts for 6 months of the year.
We desperately need to upgrade our courts so we can offer tennis all year round and to a wider group of people in the community. And that is the plan!
In recent years our children's club took off, the kids absolutely love this sport, they are never too young to start! We backed our newly qualified LTA coach, Shane Hutton, who will now be able to use our new courts to provide lessons all year round not only to our own kids' club but also to many of the children from the schools in the local area with whom he already has affiliations alongside his highly popular holiday camps.
Additionally through our affiliation with http://www.121inthecommunity.co.uk/, we will provide weekly subsidised lessons to their adults with additional needs and we hope to be able to provide them with the equipment needed. With all weather courts, their wheelchair users can participate too.
Through this crowdfunding campaign we are offering discounted membership to full time students to encourage greater involvement and uptake from the 16-25 year olds in our town. And there'll be lots of opportunities for adult lessons too such as rusty rackets and cardio tennis.
This kind of community enrichment is something that we are striving towards and is one of the many reasons why we are working tirelessly to achieve this project.
We have made a determined effort to turn our club's fortunes around and through cost savings as well as focusing on fund raising events including raffles, spot the ball and social events, we are on the journey to make our club a year round facility. We just need that extra push and we cannot get there without your generous help.
We know that enhancing our facilities will benefit the community by offering year round sports faciltiies which will not only enable and encourage the younger generations to learn new skills, but to learn to associate participating in sport with fun social interactions, a healthy lifestyle approach to exercise and well being. The project will create a more consistent, accessible level of provision, in turn helping the Club to become more sustainable and accessible to all ages and abilities.
How we’ll spend the money raised
The money raised will go into the construction of 2 all weather courts. We have already been saving and fund raising, this Crowd Funder should get us to that final stage and make our vision a reality.
Community impact
We know this project will have a big impact in raising activity and participation in a great outdoor sport, introducing many children to a sport that can be enjoyed well into your old age (our oldest player is 86!). And they will be able to continue to be active outdoors every week, improving their skills whilst being in the fresh air, regardless if its January or July.
The impact on our friends from 121 in the community will be the benefit of enjoying a new sport, learning new skills, being part of a local sports club and of course enjoying a weekly outdoor activity together.
Encouraging all, no matter what age group or ability, to learn or improve their skill sets, become part of a local, socially active sports club, get outdoors and to exercise regularly throughout the year we believe will help to improve the health and well being of our community.
We make sport fun, just look at the photos! And we want more of you to join us - all year round!
How you can play your part
There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.
1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!
2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!
4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!
This project successfully funded on 11th May 2024