Farncombe Cricket Club Clubhouse Refurbishment

Who are we?

Farncombe Cricket Club is an established Community Club in rural Surrey. We have built a sense of community, family-friendly atmosphere and links to the local area over recent years by making cricket accessible to all. We run 3 Mens Saturday teams, 2 Ladies teams, and 8 Junior Teams, 3 of which are girls teams. We provide cricket coaching into 3 local state junior schools as part of their sport curriculum – Busbridge Juniors, Godalming Juniors and Loseley Fields along with coaching and facility sharing for Broadwater secondary school.

We have over 35 men and 20 female players and an astonishing 220 juniors, 70 of which are girls.

We are an important part of the local community, a safe space to enjoy each other’s company, a place where people feel at home, a place where socialising as a family is important to us all

Why are we crowdfunding?

We need to modernise our club house that dates back to 1970 when changing rooms were not designed for today’s personal cricket equipment. Additionally the clubhouse was not designed to store equipment for 8 junior teams.

Our plan, which he have obtained planning permission for, is to build a new garage adjoined and in front of the current one. We will then convert the current garage into a changing room. After this, we will shuffle around the current changing room and shower areas to provide one larger changing room, a separate umpire changing facility and a new, individually partitioned shower room.

We now have a fully costed project that will require circa £85,000 to complete. Over recent years we have worked hard to get our finances in good shape, but still we don’t have all the funds needed to complete this project.

 During recent months we have had a successful application for a grant of £35,000 by Godalming Town Council from their Community Infrastructure Levy. Our councillors were so supportive of our club and what we do for the community, we tick all of the boxes. 

In addition, our former president Doug Hewitt left us a legacy of £10,000 to be put to good use. Our own funds give us around £25,000 to put into the project. Hence we have £70,000 of the £85,000 project, including some contingency. 

 We have explored interest free loans and some alternative grant funding from Surrey Cricket Foundation, but advice has been that we wouldn’t easily qualify for this funding and a loan only means we would have to pay it back. 

This led us down the path of closing the remaining gap with a crowdfunding project that have been successful in other clubs in Surrey and the wider country with similar needs.

 Our Surrey Cricket Foundation reps were astounded at the low cost of membership at our club of £65 for any playing member, where the average across Surrey for Adults and Juniors was £150+. Consequently, we are hoping that all of our very supportive members will feel a sense of community, recognise our value and help us to achieve our project goals by supporting this one off crowdfunding project.

How we’ll spend the money raised

From previous sections you can see that the vast majority of the project is funded. The garage will be built, the internal demolition and new partition walls are funded, plumbing, electricals and tiling are included. However £10,000 needs to cover the finishing of the changing room flooring (not cheap), benches that have in-built storage space as well as shower partitions & decorating.

 If we hit our stretch target, then that money will go towards replacing our leaking flat and improving the patio area at the front of the club house. 

 In future years our internal furniture needs to be updated and before long our net matting surface will need renewing. All of these are in the £10’s of thousands. However, we know that Surrey Cricket Foundation (ECB) funding is more achievable for these projects.

Community impact

On the face of it, a changing room upgrade would only appear to impact current teams within the club. But the impact on the future is massive. Our club is now truly one that actively promotes healthy sport for both males and females of all ages. Our female team’s development has just started and is going from strength to strength. As the girls section grows and moves into hardball cricket, then the need for facilities that females feel comfortable changing in is paramount, ensuring we can provide a welcoming environment for all.

Building a place where both men, ladies and our juniors can co-exist in parity for club facilities is important to the club and the community. To sustain the level of community engagement then we need expanded storage space to store all of the training equipment for our 220+ junior members, this is the reason are looking at a larger garage and integral changing room storage.

Providing facilities that our members are proud of, is of enormous value and plays a big part in attracting new members to sustain a club, which is a real social and sporting hub in our community during the summer months.

How you can play your part.

In essence we need 200 pledges of an average £50, we might have some bigger benefactors and for sure many smaller ones. We would hope that our local club community can play their part in pledging some money, promoting to relatives, grandparents, local businesses, maybe your business could support, many of our ex members including all of our ex pats spread around the world. Everyone can help – this is a 5 week focused project.

 If you pledge then you may well qualify to claim a reward. This ranges from discounts on meals, , free 1 to 1’s from our coaches, Test Match Tickets, England Ladies Signed Shirts and lifetime membership amongst many rewards.

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!