Chippenham Cricket Club 2nd & 3rd Grounds Pavilion

Aim

We're aiming to raise £20k towards a new pavilion that will service our 2nd & 3rd grounds so all members have an excellent experience.

Background 

Chippenham Cricket Club is a community club in North Wiltshire that is truly a club for all. We have an extensive membership that provides league and social cricket for people of all ages. The club is open to all and run entirely by volunteers. Our aim is to encourage greater participation in cricket - both physically and socially - across every part of our local community.

Adult Cricket

In the last 7 years, and interestingly specifically post Covid, the club has seen significant growth. In this time the senior playing membership has grown from approximately 50 senior players to well over 100 meaning the club has gone from three Saturday league teams, to now boasting six Saturday league teams, two midweek teams and a Sunday XI.

Women & Girls & Youth Cricket

In addition to the senior section, the club has a thriving women and girls section, that now has teams/programmes at U11, U13, U15 for girls and both women's hardball and softball teams. Our junior section supports over 200 children from across All Stars (5-8 years) to Dynamos (8-11 years) and then in to the more formal hardball offer at U11, U13, U15 and U19.

Disability Cricket

If this wasn't enough, the club in 2021 started up a new Disability section, working in partnership with the ECB and Wiltshire Cricket as a Disability Champion Club. All in all the club has over 400 members, which it looks to provide the very best opportunities and experiences to.

Our Community 

As well as providing extensive opportunities for cricket members and lovers, our club is always open to any one from the local community. We now offer a number of community events at the club across the year to engage new audiences. 

2022 Community Events

• Humphreys Mega Quiz Night (April)
• Sports Open Day (April)
• Easter Holiday Sports Camps (April)
• Pink Day (raising money for Breast Cancer & Dorothy House) (June)
• Friday Night Cricket - short sided games for local businesses (April to Aug)
• Summer Holiday Sports Camps (August)
• Beer & Cider Festival (August Bank Holiday)

Our Challenge

The growth of the club is truly fantastic news but as a consequence the club has outgrown it's facilities. The main ground, as part of Chippenham Sports Club, offers a high level of cricket pitch and practice facilities, but sadly the grounds and the facilities for many junior matches, women and girls games, as well as league games for the 3rds, 4ths, 5ths and 6ths, do not resemble anything similar.

Due to the size that the club has now become, and in the desire that it should be open to all and therefore keeps its doors open to any potential new player or social member, the club has significantly outgrown it's facilities - in fact the facilities that it offers the majority of the membership are in fact detrimental to the club and the satisfaction levels of the members.

Whilst fortunate to have the playing fields of state secondary school, Sheldon, only a 2 or 4 minute walk away, apart from the playing pitches themselves there are no other useable facilities at all. For the years that the Sheldon pitches have been used a steel container has been utilised to hold cricket bags and equipment on match days. As can be seen from the picture below, it is not the most eye-catching and it certainly doesn’t provide many of the basic things that cricket teams require on either training days or match days – changing rooms, toilets, shelter from inclement weather, rooms for umpires to change in and storage space.

Unlike many other clubs, who have bars and generate a revenue stream in this way, the club receives no profit from the bar as it is a Sports Club. Therefore, the only methods of raising funds to support the clubs needs are through fundraising, grant writing,  memberships (which we of course aim to keep low) and sponsorships. On an annual basis it is a real challenge to keep the club where it is but the committee have a drive and determination to not only retain the status quo, but to go the extra mile and strive for continual improvements.

Our Vision

Chippenham Cricket Club wants to ensure that every member of the club has the facilities that they rightly deserve and for this reason the club has the ambition to raise sufficient funds to build a pavilion adjacent to the cricket pitches on the school ground (similar to the above and in the area identified below).

Necessary work has already taken place with the school in terms of the school committing to the project and providing the club with a long term agreement for the lease of the land for the matches, and the gift of the land for the pavilion. This act by the school has made the project a reality and conversations with the Council have taken place in regard to the necessary planning permission, which is now to be submitted.

This project is by no means small and will require a great deal of fundraising/grant funding to make it a reality, but this is a project that the Cricket Club very much need and will commit to doing all of the work behind the scenes to make this a reality. 

The vision is to create a pavilion that can support all players across the two pitches on our Sheldon School site. 

New Pavilion Facilities

• 4 changing rooms to support 2 games being played at any one time.
• 2 additional, smaller, changing rooms so enabling both genders to change and be accommodated at any one time. The club now has up to 10 girls/women that play each week in the Saturday teams and so changing rooms for both genders is a must.
• An officials room.
• Showers and toilets for players and spectators. 
• Disability access and be fully DDA compliant.
• A small kitchen so teas can be taken at the ground rather than trudging back to the main sports club. 

Please support us

To help us provide the facilities that our members deserve please donate to support our much needed project. We are working with Wiltshire County Council, Wiltshire Cricket and the England & Wales Cricket Board to help deliver this project. However, we now need to fundraise, via this Crowdfunder appeal, to help the club achieve the overall total. We would greatly appreciate any donation you can make, no matter the value, and it will be gratefully received by everybody at the cricket club. We are targeting over 125 pledges from people associated to our local cricket, and from across the wider 'Chippenham Family', or from anyone who is simply willing to support a very positive project which will make a huge difference to our club and to all of it's members. 

Thank you from all at Chippenham CC.

This project successfully funded on 8th May 2022