The aim is to upgrade the clubhouse to be fully accessible, modern, energy efficient and safe for the community and club members.
by Badshot Lea Tennis Club in Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom
Should the Club be successful in receiving additional funding, they would use it to purchase club tennis rackets for adults and juniors for those coming to try the sport on Open Days. Mini tennis equipment would also be purchased to encourage the younger stars of the future.
Badshot Lea Tennis Club is a not-for-profit tennis club established in 1936. The Club benefits from 2 tarmacadam tennis courts with a clubhouse between them, adjacent to the Recreation Ground in Badshot Lea. The Club managers have been proactive in promoting tennis providing competitive and social play for adult beginners and juniors. Currently, access to tennis is constrained by daylight hours (and adverse weather).
Planning permission was granted in August 2021 for the Tennis Club development project, to provide better tennis- and clubhouse-facilities for the local community. Stage 1 is to install floodlights. Stage 2 is to replace or refurbish the clubhouse with an accessibility-friendly fully-fitted modern one. The current clubhouse is showing its age, with restricted accessibility and in need of renovation for health and safety.
With no tennis played for long periods of time due to the COVID lockdowns the surface of the courts became damaged by moss. The courts have been surfaced treated in April 2021 in readiness for the new season. This was self-financed out of our reserves. These monies were to be part of the Clubs improvement plan.
Every penny that we raise goes back into the club. Investment in this development project will provide tennis facilities to be proud of. The Club is run completely by volunteers from the membership. We strive to be at the heart of our local community and have successfully built a current membership base of 55 adults and 20 children. We have members with age range 5 to 80+ and abilities from complete beginners to excellent local league players.
The Club is fortunate enough to have an LTA level 3 qualified coach affiliated to the club, with an LTA level 4+ visiting.
We are a local league venue, hosting winter and summer Aldershot and District Lawn Tennis Association (ADLTA) league matches. We enter mixed and men’s teams in this league. We also run fun days for juniors and tournament days for members. We also have Free Open Days for anyone to come and try out our facilities.
Pre-COVID, the Club had an improvement plan to support those with additional needs and to maintain our Club programme for the community. We were aiming to provide additional court time with the installation of floodlights and an accessible friendly clubhouse. Planning permission for both of these was granted in August 2021.
Response to the pandemic
Tennis is thankfully considered to be one of safest sports to return to, allowing us to quickly open facilities after the first 8-week lockdown initially for Singles play. Eventually as restrictions lightened and doubles commenced it was great to see so many people coming down and enjoying our outdoor courts. Being allowed back to tennis after lockdown made us really appreciate just how much we love being able to come to the Club and what tennis and being here means to our physical and mental health and wellbeing.
By keeping the Club open we managed to attract new interest from the community who have in turn found time to try a new sport or come back to tennis as well as making new friends in an open and friendly environment. This definitely helped ease the loneliness and help with the mental wellbeing of a lot of our members including of course the exercise. In the process we have naturally had extra expenses with all the sanitising liquids, increased cleaning regime and safety notices. Thank you to Sport England with their Emergency Fund to help the Club open up safely after the first lockdown period.
Community Engagement
The Club provides:
Local comment in support of the improvements:
'With the increasing population in the area, affordable leisure facilities are required. The club is heavily restricted by the limited playing time due to light and the poor state of the clubhouse. With limited sports facilities in Badshot Lea, people will commute to other places rather than play local if the facilities are inadequate'
With local facilities for local people, less travel, better for the environment.
Why the need for Crowdfunding
The Club has successfully obtained grants from the local council and other local organisations. The Club has been actively raising funds through Gin Evenings, BBQ and local donations. However in order to fulfil the improvement of the facilities for the local community there is still a small shortfall.
Our membership fees are extremely keenly priced in an attempt to make “Sport Open For All.” Our members were compensated last year by having 50% reduction in their membership as the courts were not open for the full year, however this has meant our revenue from 2020 for improvements was down. As a club we will do everything within our power to continue making “Sport Open For All” but naturally need to cover our basic expenses in order to keep running and carry out essential maintenance to the existing clubhouse and courts.
Crowdfunder and Sport England have teamed up to make £2.5 million of match funding available to help the sport and physical activity sector through the ongoing Coronavirus crisis. Active Together and Sport England have pledged funding through this scheme. With the Club's aim of raising at least £5000 through donations and to be 30% (£1,500) matched by Sport England, raising up to £6,500 to allow the project improvements to go ahead. This is a superb opportunity and a great incentive to ensure our Crowdfunding is successful.
Please share our page far and wide on all your social media. Even the smallest of donations is very much welcomed.
Please pledge now whatever you can afford.
Where will the money raised be spent?
As a not-for-profit club with limited means, we have a list of where the funds could be spent, however, these are our priorities should we reach our target:
If you are a local business that could assist us with this project and would like to be affiliated to our Club or this improvement project, we would be very glad to hear from you.
This project offers rewards in return for your donation. Please select a reward below.