Project Team Pace - Club Bowling Machine Purchase

Who Are We?:

Beacon Cricket Club is a friendly Clubmark Accredited village club that was established in 1906. We have two adult sides competing in Cornwall Cricket League, with our 1st XI compete in County Division One with our 2nd XI competing in Division 3 West. We also run a midweek Evening League team.

The club is an ECB All Stars & Dynamos Cricket Centre and has a thriving youth section which boast youth teams for the following age groups:-

• Under 9's 
• Under 11's 
• Under 13's

This year the club boasts a 200% increase in registered female players and is likely to see many weeks where they will make up over 25% of a starting XI.

The Effects of COVID-19 on Beacon Cricket Club:

Whilst Beacon Cricket Club has an extremely ambitious Committee, the club will always face the stiff challenge of being geographically pinned between local rival town clubs Camborne & Redruth and fellow rival village club Troon who have an extremely rich history in the National Village cup competition.

This locale provides many challenges including financial, which unfortunately due to the pandemic has been further exacerbated! All clubs being within a 5 mile radius, find themselves in one of the most deprived areas of the country. This makes it difficult to find significant sponsorship opportunities.

To reduce the impact of this limited income source in 2012/13 the Committee and it's amazing team of volunteers developed and opened the club bar in the pavilion. This was a major step forward for the club. This new, much needed revenue stream has proved to be integral to sustaining the club, and in the earlier years to ensure its very existence.

The Committee continually review the club's financial performance and it has been evident for many years that the income from the bar effectively subsidises the increasing cricketing costs and so when the pandemic struck this had large financial implications on the club as it was unable to open the bar.

The painful irony behind our 'old faithful' bowling machine breaking only 6 months before the pandemic struck, meant that where members would have been able to train in isolation or smaller groups with the use of the bowling machine, they were now unable to do so and this could have been a great outlet for many during a really tough period.

We are now looking to fund raise for a replacement bowling machine so that we can improve our offering to current and potential new members in order to further compete with rival clubs.

What you are funding:

The club are looking to purchase a new Bola bowling machine to replace the (now defunct 15 year old machine) http://www.bola.co.uk/new-professional.html

This machine will allow us to improve our offering to both our adult and youth section alike, thus increasing the club's appeal. With the added benefits of being able to train alone it would future proof the club against any restrictions introduced and offer members a way to maintain physical and mental wellbeing despite restrictions.

The club is confident that the addition of this asset would be another stepping stone in bridging the perceived gap between village and town cricket.

Above - Further proof that the addition of a batting training aid would be welcomed

Our Club in the Community:

Despite the financial challenges alluded to above, the Cricket Club has continued in it's efforts to support the local community outside of the sporting arena and where possible support charities close to it's members hearts. 

Recent events have included:-

• 'Brave the shave' where £3000 was raised for Cancer Research UK.
• A Christmas collection and raffle for CPR foodbank saw 17 boxes of food collected and £300 raised.
• Very recently the club offered out its premises and provided volunteers for a local cricketer for another club doing a 24 hour danceathon to Toto - Africa also in aid of CPR foodbank which has seen around £6000 raised.

This is in addition to providing an all inclusive community hub that offers competitive cricket for both youth and adult age groups. With your generosity, the Club can continue to develop and increase the availability and quality of the sporting opportunities available to those in our community. 

What some of our Members say:

Summary

The Club see's the funding raised here, for the procurement of a bowling machine, as a critical component to the long term objective of being the blueprint for all village cricket clubs!

#stackdontslack

Above - Rupert, one of the club's latest All Stars