Our club
Enfield Ignatians is North London’s most successful community Rugby Club. We have strong links to the local community, particularly through our youth section, with squads from Under-6s up to our first team who compete in the Counties 1 - Hertfordshire & Middlesex league. The club has both adult and youth members comprising two senior squads, 12 youth squads, girls’ teams and a team in the Masters Touch Rugby League, for those of us of an older vintage.
Why are we crowdfunding?
The club is aiming to improve our facilities, especially for our female members and guests. Our planning application and lease negotiations with the council are progressing and the project will have various stages. The first part is to prepare the existing changing rooms for refurbishment and build the external works for drainage. The new build will follow this stage. We have applied for a grant from the RFU to make these improvements, but that will only cover about half of the costs, hence our need to Crowdfund.
Our aim is to turn our changing rooms into something more spacious, comfortable and welcoming, with suitable privacy. Below is an example of our current changing rooms and what we expect our new changing rooms to look like:-
So what are we going to do?
We want to ensure that playing rugby is as equally enjoyable for girls and ladies as it is for boys and men. Our existing changing facilities do not allow both sexes to change at the same time as currently all our changing rooms are at one end of the corridor (see our photo below) and all our toilets and showers are at the other end, making it not feasible for males and females to change at the same time.
We very much want both our male and female teams to feel an integral part of the club and enabling everyone to train and play play at the same time is central to our ambition. This means having to upgrade our changing facilities to ensure this happens, possibly in two stages. Initially to refurbish our existing 4 changing rooms into 2, with toilets and showering facilities contained within each changing room. Secondly we want to extend our clubhouse to incorporate 2 more changing rooms with the same facilities.
The cost of doing this is beyond this fund, so we are going to have to seek additional RFU and other grant funding. However there are various tasks that need to be done in advance, such as ground, drainage, structural and tree surveys.
At the same time we are aiming to improve our toilet facilities for both ladies and gents as they do not meet current standards. As you can see in the photos below, the ladies loos are very cramped and gents loos do not provide much privacy. You can seen what the before and after will look like. This is the before:-
And this is what the after will look like:-
The ladies loos will be built to a similar standard.
Community impact
The aim of this fund is to improve the facilities for the whole community, but in particular for females, whether they be players, officials, spectators or visitors. We will continue to work in local schools, with both boys and girls, to promote our game and with the aim of recruiting more players to our club. Also we will continue to run tag days, minis festivals and other events, to promote community involvement in our club. A 2022/23 analysis of our Youth Section revealed that around 26% of our members are from the most disadvantaged areas of the borough, we continue to target schools in that area to increase that percentage.
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!