Who are we?
The Connaught Club is a Community Amateur Sport Club (CASC) located within the beautiful surroundings of Epping Forest in North Chingford. The Club has been in existence since 1885 and has a long and proud history. Over the years many famous names have graced its sporting facilities and it has developed a reputation as a centre of excellence for lawn bowls, tennis and squash.
Why are we crowdfunding?
As part of the Connaught Club's commitment to be fully inclusive to all, we are fundraising to provide wheelchair access to the club's facilities and two tennis courts.
We need to raise £47,000 to complete this exciting project.
Please find below the full details or click on this link to donate and help us reach our target.
Thank you in advance.
The Connaught Club provides sporting facilities in Squash, Racquetball, Tennis and Bowls to a large number of people in the local community. We are open 12 months a year and only close on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. We have 9 tennis courts, 4 squash courts a small gym and a lush bowls green.
The ages of those who attend the Club range from 3 years to over 90 years and include both private members, members of the public and schools.
The Club has qualified coaches across all its sports to help new and existing players to improve their game. We also run Tennis and Squash camps during the school holidays.
Due to the age and layout of our buildings we are unable to offer our facilities to the wheelchair community.
We would love to be able to open our doors and welcome wheelchair users to the Club to enjoy its facilities through membership and coaching sessions. We hope to provide opportunities for personal development for children, young people, and adults.
With your support, we need to raise £47,000 through a minimum of 25 unique contributions. Once we hit £15,000, Sport England will match it with an incredible £15,000, doubling the impact of your donation. Together, we can make this happen!
How we’ll spend the money raised
The Club intends to improve its inclusivity by installing a ramp with auto opening doors to the Clubs front entrance, installing a ramp to our outdoor tennis courts and to refurbish/reconfigure our bathrooms to install a disability friendly wet room.
The picture below shows the lack of wheelchair accessibility to the outdoor tennis courts. We plan on providing wheelchair access to two outdoor courts by installing a ramp from the path onto the court and by widening the gate.
The Clubs current bathroom facilities are not wheelchair accessible due to the narrow door frame. This funding would allow us to improve the bathroom access by creating a wider entrance, enabling people with additional needs to use our facilities.
The Clubs disabled toilet pictured below is small and not wheelchair friendly. One way your donations will help us is by allowing us to convert the toilets into an accessibly facility with a wet room.
Community impact
Sports Clubs in the Chingford area for wheelchair users are few and far between.
The Connaught Club is committed to creating accessible facilities that encourage all members of the local community to partake in and enjoy sport. We are passionate about increasing the accessibility of the club to create a more inclusive club culture, and aim to reduce barriers to people with disabilities participating in sport.
The Connaught Club believe all members should feel valued and receive equal opportunities to participate in sport. We aim to ensure both current and future members with disabilities are able to participate in tennis to experience improvements in both physical and mental health, as well as providing opportunities for social inclusion.
We are passionate about challenging stereotypes of disability in sports and reducing physical barriers by creating accessible facilities.
How you can play your part
There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.
1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!
2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!
4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!