Nottingham Casuals Club Development

Aim

Help us widen rugby participation in our community, improve our facilities and become carbon neutral. Easy, right?

With a history of over 100 years, Nottingham Casuals is a community rugby club that is open to all. We have around 450 active players aging from 3 to 67 who come from all over Nottingham and beyond. We have three senior men's teams, a women's team, University of Nottingham Medics teams (men and women), Nottingham Hurricanes IGR team plus 17 teams of minis, juniors and girls all training and playing at Canalside. These numbers continue to grow year on year.

We are passionate about ensuring that anyone can be involved in rugby and we need to improve our facilities to support this.

Our membership fees are kept low to ensure we're as inclusive as possible, but this means that fees only cover the essential running costs. So here we are, we're crowdfunding!

As we recover from the impact of Covid restrictions and contend with high running costs, we are going to raise £25,000 which will go towards funding (in order of priority as we raise enough to invest in each): 

• Solar panels – to provide electricity for use and to sell back to the grid. We will lower our bills by 2/3rds, and in 5-7yrs we'd make the cost back. This will include roof repairs which are needed anyway and this has the added benefit of making Casuals a net zero carbon footprint club! Estimated Cost = £40-45k
• Borehole and irrigation system – to irrigate our grounds to keep pitches and training areas in superb condition. The pitches are used everyday of the week, throughout the season. We had to cancel games for safety concerns last season and being on a flood plain means we never retain water in the soil. This project will allow our groundsmen to provide some lush grass to get our boots stuck into and ensure the pitches remain playable throughout the season. Estimated cost = £25,000.
• Kitchen refurbishment – to enable provision of a high quantity of good quality catering. There is only enough space for one person in our current kitchen and this makes it almost impossible to cater for 300 kids on a Sunday and limits the options of what can be cooked. Improving the kitchen will allow us to cater for our numbers, use more energy efficient equipment and be able to offer healthier food that also carries a lower carbon footprint. Estimated cost = £20,000

These projects will make vital savings for the club and bring in extra revenue that we will plough into further improvements. 

Casuals have seen an amazing increase in membership over recent years. We will improve our club to support that growth and encourage wider participation from underrepresented communities, whilst becoming more environmentally sustainable and keeping membership costs affordable. We're pretty much at capacity in terms of pitch usage and we really struggle for social space, especially on Sundays.

When we achieve our £25,000 target, we may be eligible for further funding from external funders. The world is our oyster right now, so please support our club in this ambitious challenge! 

This Crowd Fund is just the first step in our plans for club development, with lots more exciting things to come. The club will become the place to be for the local community.

There are loads of options for you, all of which will have a fantastic impact on our community: 

• Donations 
• Use this Crowd Funder page to pay for our products or services. Just select the amount to pay as a donation* 
• Gift aid on donations
• Annual sponsorship deals 
• Volunteering  
• Fundraising events 
• Prize draws 

*if the amount that you would like to donate / pay is not shown in the rewards section, please make multiple donations to total the correct sum.

Longer term projects:

• Floodlights - To improve our lighting to our training pitches, also to install floodlights to our 1st team pitch for midweek fixtures and to use the same pillars to provide lighting to one half of the 2nd team pitch to increase our training space
• Extend our buildings - we have planning permission for an extra set of changing rooms, but we need some more indoor social space in the clubhouse too

Some really exciting developments that the club desperately needs to continue growing and providing facilities for all Casuals this season and for seasons to come.

We've been working hard already to improve the club's impact on the environment and expand our community. Here are just some of the projects that we've already invested in over the last year:

• Insulated the clubhouse ceiling
• Electricity savings: timers, lighting efficiency improvements and smart switches
• Introduced a recycling system
• Planted hedgerows and trees
• Installed a defibrillator box for community use
• Added sanitary products provision
• Refurbished the ladies' toilets
• Added baby changing facilities
• Bought new match kits
• Bought new training equipment
• Delivered a tournament for local schools to increase participation
• Invested in our girls and colts recruitment
• Installed a new till system for the bar
• Bought a scoreboard

Thank you so much for your support. If you have any questions about donations, sponsorship or fundraising events, please email [email protected]

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made