GILFORD ABC MORE THAN JUST A BOXING CLUB!!!

Aim

Our aim at Gilford ABC is to make a full and positive recovery from the covid pandemic by strengthening and rebuilding our club and members

CLUB BACKGROUND

The above image was all to familiar with all  boxing clubs during the pandemic. 

Gilford ABC is a boxing club run solely by committed coaches and volunteers.  Our members are made up of a diverse section of cross community young adults and children.  Our members are not only from the Gilford area but come from surrounding towns such as Lurgan, Banbridge, Portadown and Craigavon. We take pride in the sense of camaraderie we instill in our members.  We aim to ensure that all our boxers reach their desired potential and we are proud of the fact that we have produced many title winners over the years.   While we are confident that we will continue to nurture the best in our members, the logistics involved in training and competing are costly.  To ensure that our club is accessible to all who wish to join and attend we only charge our members a very small fee.  This means that we have limited funds to meet demands such as travel costs which are essential to bring our boxers to other clubs for vital sparring sessions and to transport them to competitions around the country.  This is only one example of the many costs running our club entails.

WHAT OUR PROJECT IS ABOUT

The main aim of our appeal is to reinvent, reinject and rejuvenate.

-Reinvent our club as a shared space for all our boxers and those who attend classes

-Reinject a sense of togetherness and pride in our club

-Rejuvenate a new sense of energy and vigour amongst our members

To achieve this we hope to entice new membership across our training sessions and classes and also encourage former members to return.  Fund raising is vital to the club in order to achieve these aims. Crowd funding is the new way to do this.  Sports NI will match any amount raised by us up to a maximum of £5000.

HOW COVID HAS AFFECTED OUR CLUB

The huge impact of covid has affected all our lives and Gilford ABC’s trainer's and members are no exception.  The effect the pandemic has had on young people especially is devasting.  Those participating in sports and other groups felt the impact deeply.  Boxing has particularly been affected due to the fact the sport was one of the first to be totally cancelled and the last to make a full return to training and competing.   Boxers need to train together, spar each other and most importantly they need to compete.  when all this was taken away it was only natural our boxers felt deflated and isolated.  We are here to combat this impact.  With our dedicated team of coaches and our committed and earnest members we aim to put the devastation of the past two years behind us and move forward positively.   We vow to reinstate a sense of competitiveness and pride among all our young people.

But to do this we need your help.

WHAT YOUR HELP WILL PROVIDE

Since the pandemic membership numbers within our club have almost halved for various reasons such as members finding other hobbies and interests to fill the void that the cancelling of all boxing training and competitions left.  We aim to rectify this and encourage the uptake of boxing for training and for competitiveness by promoting our club in a new level.  This will involve the upstart of new classes aimed at all genders, ages and fitness levels. These will include classes for junior boxers, women's fitness classes and boxfit classes. As well as the upfront costs involved in promotion, we will also incur costs for new training gear, equipment and kits to achieve our aims.  

HOW YOUR DONATIONS WILL BENEFIT THE CLUB

Before the pandemic struck our boxers were in their prime both mentally and physically.  Many of them were coming away from competitions having won medals and of those who didn’t we instilled a great sense of onwards and upwards, teaching them that even a loss in the boxing ring provides great lessons and invaluable experience.  Pre-pandemic three of our boxers had reached one of the highest levels of achievement for an amateur boxer in the North and were invited to participate in the High-Performance Unit in Belfast.  Unfortunately, their attendance was cut short due to the cessation of all training shortly afterwards.  With your help we aim to get our boxers back to these high levels of achievement and all your donations will help immensely with this.  We hope a little injection of ‘out with the old and in with the new’ will help us achieve our goals and therefore provide an environment in which our members feel safe and secure and looked after as part of a proud team united team.   We are confident your donations will greatly help us to improve our services and ultimately help in the well-being, both mentally and physically, of all here at Gilford ABC.  All at the club will be truly grateful for any amount you wish to donate.  Here at Gilford we have always used the motto 'teamwork makes the dreamwork’ so please help us to help our team and achieve our dreams.

This project successfully funded on 19th April 2022