Dundrum Cricket Club, Women's and Juniors!

Aim

To help the Club bounce-back even stronger post-pandemic by establishing a women's cricket team at Dundrum.

We set this up to support the new women's team, we've now stretched the target to get more coaching for juniors.

Dundrum Cricket Club, founded in 1903 is a local community cricket club playing within the Northern Cricket Union, in Northern Ireland.  We currently have 110 playing members across the senior and junior sections of the Club.

We have 3 senior men's teams and a junior section consisting of competative U15 and U13 teams and recreational U11 and minis sections. This project will add a women's team to the Club.

Dundrum approached the 2020 season intent on forming a women's team, but a global pandemic derailed that plan.  It was complex enough getting the senior teams some training and limited matches.  Sadly the juniors lost the whole season, and it wasn't an environment to try and launch something new.  The following year, in the summer of 2021, with senior cricket returning towards some from of normality the Club worked hard to re-establish the junior section - and we are delighted that we now have more juniors playing than we did pre-pandemic.  However, whilst focusing on the junior section's recovery from the challenges of covid, we just didn't have the capacity to get the women's team up and running.  But that is going to change this year!

At the end of the 2021 season the Club advertised it's intent to establish a women's team and ran some introductory sessions.  This has proved there is demand and we've entered a women's team into the NCU Women's League 1 for the coming season.

This year, and with your help, we are going to make sure Dundrum Cricket Club is even stronger, more diverse and more inclusive.  We're going to be the first cricket club in The Newry Mourne and Down Council area with an all female team.  

Women will be able to compete in recreational and competitive cricket and the Club is determined to ensure that this is sustainable, with a long term aim of ensuring there is an opportunity for women to play cricket in this area every summer, and with training opportunities throughout the year.

To make this possible funding is required to equip and support the new female team.  We've already redesigned the inside of the clubhouse and built a female changing room, but we need to hire indoor training facilities, pay coaches and purchase the training and match equipment that the women need to ensure they are ready for the league that they've entered. 

If we achieve funding this will allow us to complete indoor hard-ball cricket training before the weather allows training at Dundrum's ground.  It will also allow us to purchase the protective cricket equipment for the women and equip the women with exactly the same coloured playing kit all other Club teams wear. 

The direct benefit is a new sporting opportunity for women and girls in the area, with indirect benefits of increased opportunity for physical exercise, and the mental well being and sense of belonging that participation in team sport provides. This increases sporting opportunity for women and girls, and we think is the right way to bounce back from the last couple of years. 

The woman's team will be open to all within the local community while supporting young girls within the junior section to enable them to progress within the Club by providing a network to help support their development. 

With your help, this funding will allow the Club to launch our women's cricket team.

Thank you!

This project successfully funded on 6th May 2022