Completion of Pavilion Extension

Aim

To raise £20K to cover income lost due to COVID-19 and to help kick-start the build on our community orientated pavilion extension

Apperley Cricket Club - About Us

Apperley CC, nestled in the northern Gloucestershire village of Apperley, near Tewkesbury, has been actively supporting cricket and the local community since 1859.  Whatever your age, if you like the countryside, our picturesque rural grounds are ideal place to play the great game.

COVID-19

Due to the global pandemic hitting this country in the spring, sadly our cricket clubhouse was closed for all of March through to the beginning of July - this resulted in a massive loss of expected income, not only the many cricket matches not played, but from social bar takings and other local events that the club actively host. We were reliant on this income to contribute greatly to the cost of our pavilion extension, which we were intending on commencing October 2020. With the help of this Crowdfund we hope that this ambition can still be met!

How COVID-19 has affected the Financial Position of the Club:

• Income from cricket subs, match fees & post-game bar revenue during April-July 2020 - estimated financial loss of approx. £5,000*
• Cancelled Village Fete in July 2020 - estimated financial loss of approx. £1,000*
• Cancelled It's a Knock Out in August 2020 - estimated financial loss of approx. £2,250*
• Cancelled Apperley Quarter Marathon in September 2020 - estimated financial loss of approx £5,000*
• Cancelled Village Community Ball in October 2020 - estimated financial loss of approx. £2,000*
• Upcoming Winter social events will be affected due to the current and on-going restrictions - estimated financial loss of approx. £2,000*

*based on 2018-2019 figures.

Looking at these figures as a whole, it would be fair say that we outbreak of Covid-19 and the resulting lockdown and social restrictions has had a truly devastating financial impact on our club, with it being an estimated £15,000 down on where it would be in a Summer without Covid. And with yet more losses predicted for the Autumn and Winter as things currently stand with official Government guidance and rules, the club really does need your help.

Why our cricket club is so special and worth investing in:

Junior & Girls cricket: 

Junior matches take place in the Leadon Vale League throughout the week, during the first half of the summer. Age groups, at U9, U11 and U13 are represented, with mixed sex representation. We also have a girls U13 team in the County League, which we have 4 current Glos County Age group players. In the last 12 months, our junior section has risen from 37 to 54 children. We have one qualified coach that the club finances and we are looking to attract another coach due to the increase in numbers.

Senior Teams

With regard to senior cricket, the club runs 2 senior league sides on Saturdays and a friendly Sunday team. Pre-Covid our 1st XI, having won the County League Division 1 had just been promoted to the West of England Premier Leagues. The 2nd XI play in County League Division 6 and just like the youth section, there has been a significant increase in both player numbers and interest in our thriving men’s teams.

Other cricket usage 

The ground is not only used for own club matches, it's used for Gloucestershire Cricket Board matches of varying age groups, including county youth and county girls matches, right through to the over 70's Team!

And ...... we are far from just a Cricket Club!!

The Club is the hub of the local community and we have a large and growing social membership from the village and surrounding areas. As well as this, many local organisations use the Clubhouse and facilities, including;

• PTFA meetings for the village school 
• Local Women’s Institute meetings
• Local Young Farmers social events

• Ladies circuit training

• Youth clubs

• Local Ladies Social nights

• Climbing Club

• Small indoor social events (including birthday parties, wakes, christenings)
• Charity outdoor events (Apperley Quater-marathon, It's a Knock Out Fun Day, Village Fete, PTFA fund raisers, Community Village Ball)

What we’d like to achieve:

Despite being so important to our local community (and even to the county on occasions!), for a lot of the sporting and social occasions we hold we desperately lack indoor space, and particularly when the weather turns inclement or indeed for winter events.
We are very eager to improve our disabled/wheelchair access into the clubhouse too. Whilst it does currently meet the criteria requirement, we’d dearly love to do more and make it even easier and quicker for those with disabilities to access our facilities.

We also have very little space to store equipment that is used by the cricket club and other groups that use the facility. In the summer we have to erect a temporary gazebo to house much of the equipment that is stored in the away players changing room through the winter (see below photos).

On top of this, we are desperate to utilise the clubhouse for our club cricket dinners/award nights and for the annual village quiz too. However the venue is simply too small.

With this crowdfunding, we would seek to increase the internal capacity to enable this and without the need to source expensive alternative venues. Indeed with increased capacity we’d be able to branch out into hosting even larger social events than we the limited smaller ones we currently squeeze in - maybe even stretching to small wedding receptions. The more indoor capacity we have the more we can do and offer for our local community.

The clubs over-arching ambition is to bring the whole local community together, as well as attracting new members - young, old, men, women, able bodied and those with disabilities - and encourage more participation in cricket, both in a physical and social sense FOR ALL!
A new, enlarged and refurbished clubhouse is essential to this goal and therefore this funding is desperately needed to enable us to carry out this building project.

Why support us? 

Given the impact of COVID-19, the club has lost a huge amount of income that would've gone a long way towards the new pavilion extension, that will drastically improve the disabled access and storage space as well as becoming an enabler in our ambitions to host further/larger local events. It will also make the clubhouse a better environment for all that use it, whether that is cricket or any other event. If you share this dream and ambition for our club - please pledge and help make our dreams into reality!

Some Club Member Comments

"The club is the focal point of the community, not just for sport. It's a safe environment for our children to play."

"As a parent, the environment created by the club encourages my children to grow socially"

"Apperley Cricket Club has fostered a love of cricket in my children."

"As a newcomer to the village, Apperley Cricket Club has allowed me to get to know people and, because of that, I now feel an integral part of village life."

"As a member of the social committee and PTFA committee, I really enjoy seeing the events that we help organise in the village, help newcomers join the cricket club and become a part of it"

"The cricket club gives me a great platform to participate in local league cricket - keeping physically and mentally active.  As a key worker, this has been my perfect release during COVID."

"As a player, I enjoy that the club allows me to participate in competitive cricket and enjoy the social side of the game."

This project successfully funded on 30th September 2020