Floodlights upgrade at LCSC

Aim

Upgrading our old floodlights, will reduce the cost of our Electricity and reduce our Carbon footprint. Make our club Sustainable.

Letchworth Corner Sports Club Crowdfunder

Our club consists of 

Letchworth Hockey Club, 

Letchworth Garden City Cricket Club, 

Whitethorn Bowls Club  

Hitchin and Letchworth Weightlifting Club

Letchworth Corner Sports Club has a central ground within easy access to all Letchworth residents with a vibrant sports and social section. As well as the main clubs pictured above, the all weather surface is used by five a side football teams from the community. The clubhouse and pitch is used by local scouts and guides groups. The clubhouse has a function room which is used by other clubs such as a Sewing club as well as by charitable groups.

LCSC looks after the Clubhouse, grounds and Astroturf Pitch at Letchworth Corner

LCSC Clubhouse

Our clubhouse has undergone major refurbishment in recent years. We now have a newly refurbished upstairs bar area. A new rooftop terrace area off the upstairs bar area, which practically doubles the space

A brand new function room downstairs with its own bar, toilets and Kitchen.

Upgraded showers and changing facilities in the clubhouse.

Our previous Crowdfunding campaign contributed towards these changes:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/letchworthcorner where we raised a massive £23,800.

Downstairs Function Room

Upstairs Bar Area

New Terrace Area

Upgraded Showers and changing rooms

As well as thanking all our members for these past efforts, it would be good to ask again for contributions to this Crowdfunder.

Club within the Community

In addition to sport for all our membership, our sports clubs of Cricket and Hockey have wide support from the local community at their fixtures. Both our cricket and hockey clubs play in  high division regional leagues. Indeed our hockey club is at one division below the National Leagues.

Our Ground

The clubhouse is central to the community in other aspects.

We have scout and guides groups, needlework clubs, regular events bookings from quizzes to children's parties. We have hosted several weddings and even had a film crew running a soap opera episode at our club ground.

We regularly hold a yearly lashings cricket event which attracts a large local crowd.

As we work to further improve our club, we will find we become even deeper entrenched with our local community. A true family community club indeed.

Birmingham 2022

How our project will be United by Birmingham 2022

Hockey  has been a part of the commonwealth games since 1998. Birmingham 2022 saw 10 different commonwealth countries entering teams. Home nations sides from England, Scotland and Wales

These were joined by sides from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,Pakistan,India,Canada and Ghana

In Mens Hockey the medals were Australia(Gold) India (Silver) England (Bronze)

In Women's Hockey the medals were England (Gold) Australia (Silver) India (Bronze)

This strong showing by England is testament to the hundreds of local clubs with Astroturf floodlit pitches that encourages the grassroots participation in our sport.

Hockey is one of the most inclusive of sports across the world and our club encourages members from all the segments of our community to participate.

Being a predominantly winter sport, introduction to hockey programs and the coaching of hockey takes place in the evenings under floodlights. By tackling the core costs we hope at Letchworth, to maintain and increase the participation of the local community in our sport.

Upgrade to the Floodlights

LCSC is currently in the process of accumulating the required funds to carry out significant Capital Expenditure by improving our old floodlights. The astroturf pitch is important both to our clubs as a playing surface and as a pitch for hire to the community. We raise money by hiring the pitch, we will retain more money by reducing our floodlights cost. This will improve our sustainability long term.

Replacing the old 24 Halogen bulbs with 20 new LED bulbs with a new control system. The current floodlights draw 48KW per hour and is an on/off control system for all the floodlights. The new system will draw  26KW per hour on full but will also be able to have only sections of the floodlights on.

It is anticipated that this will halve the cost of Electricity from the Astroturf pitch, with a saving of at least £5000 per annum to LCSC and will produce a smaller Carbon Footprint from our Club. This improves the environmental impact from our Sports club with benefit to our local area and natural Environment.

Environmental Benefit

Replacement of existing bulbs to LED bulbs leads to a reduction in electricity usage which decreases the carbon emissions produced through the burning of fossil fuels. An annual reduction of some 5,000 kilos of CO2 Emission will result from this upgrade. 

This reduction has long term benefits for the environment and human health. In addition the LED lights have a longer life span and replaces the Halogen light bulbs that regularly needed replacing and were hazardous waste, containing gases and mercury. 

LED floodlights are a much greener form of energy.

Costs of this Upgrade and Funding

Overall cost of this Project is anticipated at £37,000

LCSC has been given a conditional grant from the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation of £15,000 for the floodlights upgrade.

LCSC has a prospective, conditional grant of £12,000 from Green King Brewery to improve our club, which may be used for the floodlights.

This Crowdfunder target will help to narrow the difference.

It is important that as a club we try  to minimise money taken from the reserve pot which is being saved towards the next replacement of the playing surface of our Astroturf pitch, a potential £100k + expense

Expanding our  Membership

LCSC continues to attract members from the local community to our club. Much of the coaching and training takes place under floodlights in the evenings after work. To continue to offer this sporting facility at negligible cost, we need to keep the costs as low as possible. An LED upgrade will keep our running costs as low as possible.

Junior Hockey 

We are proud of our expanding junior section of boys and girls aged prom 7 to 18

playing representative matches against other local clubs.

U10, U12,U14,and U16 sides.

Tom Spreckley rose through our Junior Ranks and is currently playing in England U18 and for National League Div1N club Cambridge City.

As a club to progress further and hopefully, into the National League as Letchworth, we need to have top rate hockey astroturf facility. The LED lights will be a major step in the right direction.

Specialist Coaching

We provide specialist coaching through our club ranks to junior players with many achieving up to performance camp levels. We also offer specialist outside Coaches. 

John Hurst ( GB 2012 GK Coach) with our club Coaching team

Local club Sponsors

Haywood's with our Club Captain after providing valuable training equipment.

Clubs in more detail

Letchworth Hockey Club:

6 Saturday adult mens teams playing in the East League

5 Saturday adult Ladies teams playing in the East League

Junior Sunday Matches U8 to U16, Boys,girls and mixes sides.

Letchworth Garden City Cricket Club:

5 Saturday Mens teams playing in the Saracens Cricket Leagues

1 Sunday Ladies team playing inter club cricket matches

Junior U16 matches midweek evenings

Whitethorn Bowls Club.

Both Mens and Ladies teams playing regular matches in the county league.

A mixed side also playing weekend matches. 

Hitchin & Letchworth Weightlifting Club

Members regularly participating in competitions against members from other clubs.

Letchworth Corner Sports Club encourages sport to be played at the highest level in Letchworth Garden City.

Letchworth Corner Ground

Our extensive ground on a frosty morning.

We continue to upgrade our facilities, whilst being true to the Letchworth Garden City spirit. Maintaining green areas for nature and enjoyment of visitors and spectators - wooded areas, trees and shrubs 

How you can help

• By offering a Prize or Reward as a free gift.
• By making a donation 
• By promoting the link through your social media, after donating.

"Lets keep improving our facilities for the benefit of future generations of sports players. So they can continue to enjoy our great local sports club, thanks"

Once the £10000 target towards the floodlights has been raised, a sum of money will be held by LCSC to pay for green improvements to grass areas around the clubhouse and pathways to astroturf pitch.Projects involving Plants. (trees,shrubs,flower pots,flower borders.).

All money raised, will be spent within 12 months, on Capital projects to benefit the clubhouse and grounds at Letchworth Corner.

This project successfully funded on 1st March 2023