Cleckheaton 21 - Covid 19: Let's keep it beat!

Aim

We are bouncing back following Covid19, it has wrecked our season and our finances but with your help we will beat it and come back stronger

Cleckheaton RUFC - The First 100 Years

Cleckheaton RUFC has a long heritage. We first played rugby in 1888. Play was suspended at the start of the First World War but the rugby club reformed  in 1926 and from then has continued the great tradition that remains today, almost 100 years later! 

Cleckheaton RUFC Squad - End of 1926 Season

Serving the Community

During that time the club has given thousands of people from the community the opportunity to play and watch the game, teach, learn, volunteer, keep fit, gain life skills and form long-term friendships.  

The club has survived two world wars, but this Covid pandemic has hit our finances and we need your help to ensure we bounce back and continue for the next 100 years!

Ensuring the Future

We have had some successes in the past but we have always been a community, family-centric club. We currently have 210 juniors who we provide rugby for across 13 teams, including 3 girls teams. 

We put out 4 senior sides including an occasional Vets team, who still put themselves through it at ages of up to almost 70. And long may this continue. You may have been involved with or visited the club in the past, you may be a current member of visit socially, we need your help. 

We Are Run by Volunteers

We have many things  going for us and have many valuable volunteers who help with all aspects of running a rugby club, including cutting the grass and maintaining the grounds.

However, good will is not enough on its own and we need funds to run the club. 

We Need Your Help

We need funds every year to pay for essential things and this year we are struggling to make ends meet due to the pandemic. 

Kit & Equipment

As usual we need to buy new playing kit for all our teams. We would love you to help us do this. We also need to maintain our level of training equipment and buy match balls, training balls, tackle bags and other training materials to replace lost or worn out items. These all probably cost more than you think!

Physiotherapy Support

We have to fund essential services such as Physiotherapists. Our 1st and 2nd teams have a qualified physio at each match to ensure our players can get the treatment they need and avoid any long term injury from playing rugby. This coupled with a sizeable bill for tape, bandages and other supplies runs to many thousand pounds each season.  Without your support we may not be able to provide this for the common season.

Facility Hire

We also have to pay significant funds to hire additional facilities as we only have one pitch at the club and it just cannot cope with the number and range of players we want to engage in rugby. We hire 3 other facilities in total to help meet our needs and once again this has costs running into the thousands. Without these extra facilities training and on field time for each team would have to be cut dramatically.

General Maintenance and Stand Improvements

As well as the on field items above we also need to carry out some essential maintenance that is well overdue. Our stand is very old and in need of a revamp to at least its benching. 

 With your help we will replace the existing wooden benches with a modern alternative. There are a number of options for how we do this, all will have significant costs but will make much needed improvement. 

Finally and a little embarrassingly, whilst we have long term plans for new changing rooms, our existing changing room toilets are in need of an urgent makeover. Some construction work, plastering and decoration is required and we would also like to renew the plumbing and flooring. With your help we make those improvements before the start of next season.  

Covid 19 has knocked our finances into touch this year, our sources of funding, money from the bar, gate receipts and sponsorship have all been significantly hit by the pandemic and our income has been almost zero.  We find ourselves thousands of pounds down on where we need to be to continue business as usual.  The above items taken together will require at least £20,000 of funding and we have set our target accordingly. We need your help! For all those who have enjoyed time at the club, know of our story or are just willing to help us and our community out anyway, please donate now and/or choose one of exciting rewards. We appreciate your help and together we can defeat Covid 19.

Your Money Will also Benefit the Community

Many of our junior families face difficult circumstances and even before the terrible last 12 months, over a quarter of our young players qualified for a discount we offered on their subs due to their family's financial situation.  We want to continue to be able to do this and give them access to rugby, Covid 19 has taken its toll on our coffers but not on our enthusiasm or our commitment.   

We also want to continue to support initiatives in our local community, such as food banks and clothing banks, organised and contributed to by the club's volunteers and supporters over the last 12 months.

And our support for local good causes, needs to continue, with events such as our ladies dinner, where we dedicate a 1st XV league game to raising money for charity. The last time we did this was just before lockdown in 2020, where we raised money for Sapper Support, a charity which is staffed by volunteers who help ex-armed forces and ex-emergency services personnel with mental health issues.  

Please donate now and feel free to chose a reward as a sign of our appreciation. We need your help and we appreciate anything that you can give. 

This project successfully funded on 5th August 2021