Dawlish Lawn Tennis Club - Court Resurfacing

Aim

To secure the future of our community tennis club for years to come due to the worsening condition of our ageing courts.

Our Community Sports Club

Dawlish Lawn Tennis Club is located in the small seaside town of Dawlish in South Devon. From our humble beginnings back in the 1980’s when we had 3 grass courts and a wooden hut as a clubhouse with less than 40 members, we have come a long way.  Over the last 20 years we have been able to improve our facilities. We now have:

• A modern brick Clubhouse
• Three hard courts
• LED Floodlighting (this year)

We have 200 members of all ages and abilities from the local community regularly attend and enjoy.

• We have 9 teams playing in various local junior and adult leagues.
• We support our younger members with the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme supporting many youngsters to achieve their goals.
• We also encourage and support children through coaching qualifications.
• We support the local community through events such as the summer Carnival, LTA Tennis For All, and Halloween Tennis, opening up a new world of tennis to many who have never tried it, promoting an active and healthy lifestyle for all. 

The Problem

Back in 2019 our small management team of volunteers realised that we needed to 

• Have funds to replace our failing halogen bulb floodlighting.
• Carry out repairs our clubhouse (replace three rotten wooden patio windows and repairs to our roof).
• Resurface our three courts, due to the deteriorating condition.

We spent three years raising funds from club events, securing club sponsors, and carrying out as much of the Club’s maintenance work ourselves to minimize costs.   Many parents of our junior members helped with this work.

Earlier this year we completed two phases of our project.  We replaced our floodlighting with cost effective, energy efficient LED lighting and completed the repairs to the clubhouse at a cost of £44,000.  However, the Covid-19 pandemic impacted on our potential revenue.  Over the two-year period we lost members and received far less enquiries for new memberships.  The pandemic also impacted on the economy resulting in huge rises in cost of materials.

This has resulted in us needing to raise additional funding to complete the final phase of our project, the resurfacing of our courts.  This is desperately needed due to its very poor condition.  We patch repaired them ourselves over the last two years to see us through the pandemic.

The Aim  

We are crowd funding to raise funds, with the help of Sport England and an LTA loan to fund the additional £20,000 required to be able to resurface our courts.  Our Crowd funding target is £8,000.

The new artificial grass surface (£63,000) will be longer lasting than our current hard-court surface ensuring we futureproof the facilities for the next 15 to 20 years, and will provide a fantastic surface for the local community to enjoy.

Due to the poor condition of the current court surface contractors have informed us the work must be done. If we were to raise over our £8,000 target it would reduce the amount of LTA loan we would require.

Why this Project is so important to the Local Community 

“My daughter has been a member of Dawlish Lawn Tennis Club for 7 years. She has progressed through the junior sessions and gained a great love for the sport. As well as learning to play the game, she has made new friends, had heaps of fun, learnt to be part of a team and grown in confidence.  I cannot praise the club enough for the positive impact they have had on my child's happiness and development.”

J. Hussain, Parent of Junior Member.

“My Nephews learn so much more than tennis at the Club.   They learn, determination, motivation, leadership, and teamwork.  They love the summer tournament and team matches against other clubs.”

K. Halfyard, Auntie of two Junior Members     

“My son joined the club a few years ago, he has never been that interested in doing sport but here he never looked back.  The coaches are fantastic, so enthusiastic and passionate, they make the sessions so much fun."

S. Isaac, Parent of Junior Member

“My 8-year-old always loved football but two years ago he joined Dawlish Lawn Tennis Club and simply fell in love with the Club, we are there all the time.  This year he was selected to play for the Devon County Team.

C. Jackson, Parent of Junior Member 

The Future

We are passionate about making tennis available to our local community and having a facility everyone can be proud of.

By raising these funds we will secure the future of the club for many years to come.  The club cannot continue without the completion of this project so we just want to say a huge thank you everyone who can help us reach our target.  

This project successfully funded on 26th August 2023