Who are we?
Established in 1893, Babbacombe Cricket Club has been providing recreational cricket to the local community for more than 130 years. Today, we run three senior teams on Saturdays, offering playing opportunities to a wide range of senior players. As well as senior cricket, we have a thriving junior section catering for boys and girls aged 8 upwards, the more able of whom are provided with a pathway to open-age cricket via our recently re-established 3rd XI.
We also provide a social hub, with regular events for our playing and social members throughout the year, clubhouse hire for functions and skittles league matches in the Winter months. We also have a growing number of associate members who simply want to use the club car park to access Walls Hill and the coast path for walking.
Why are we crowdfunding?
The pavilion was originally built by our members in the early 1970s and later extended in the early 1980s to provide a skittles alley. Forty to fifty years later, the roof now needs replacing as it has become uneconomic to keep patching and repairing. We recently commissioned a professional survey which recommends replacement. The survey also indicates increasing evidence of water ingress inside, as well as the deteriorating state of the roof structure; this obviously threatens the pavilion as our main source of income. With no roof we have no pavilion; with no pavilion we have no income and no club. Roof replacement will help to secure the long term integrity of the building; this will allow us to keep operating as a club into the future.
Original build in the early 1970s.
How we’ll spend the money raised
Every penny raised will help pay for a professional contractor to replace the roof: new batten, new roof felt, eve support trays, new roof and ridge tiles.
Rotten batten, perished roof felt and cracked tiles.
Community impact
If the roof is not replaced and the financial security of the club is threatened through an unusable pavilion, then we will no longer be able to provide our offer to the local community: opportunity to play league and friendly cricket, opportunity for our boy and girl juniors to learn and develop their game, opportunity for our members to socialise, opportunity for local skittles teams to use our alley and opportunity for the local community to hire our facilities for functions. Even the use of our car park under its current terms and conditions would be threatened if the club ceased to operate. The long term integrity of our building would protect the physical and mental well being of our membership and the wider community, as well as allowing us to continue to grow as a club and reach more people in the community.
Practice night at the Hill.Wedding hire.
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! Any donation would be much appreciated:
£20 buys some tiles
£30 buys some roof batten
£40 buys some roof felt
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 or an individual by donating things we can offer to our supporters. As an individual you could offer your time or a service eg. sharing a skill or donating an item. As a local business you could offer a voucher for a discount or a free sample of your goods or services. Please contact us for further details ([email protected]). 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!