Our Vision is to make Cricket the #1 Summer Team Sport for Girls and to Achieve This We Require the Right Equipment (especially the correct variety of ball)
We would like to buy a variety of balls with varying size weight & material so that the most appropriate variety is used by the different age & experience levels in our GIRLS CRICKET PROGRAMME for 1,200 girls (Schools and Club players with whom we have contact).
Holywood Cricket Club 1881 has grown tremendously since 2015 to have more than 330 Juniors, of whom ~ 40% are girls. COVID-19 has derailed this progress by preventing us engaging with these and other girls in-school, causing fewer to register with our Club, resulting in a material negative impact to our financial health. We would like to recover some of this lost funding to restart and further develop our innovative and leading Girls Cricket Programme for ~ 1,200 School Girls, connecting all our School and Club activities to our home base of Seapark (a "Hub" for Girls Cricket). To achieve our goal we are asking your help in buying the appropriate ball type for each age bracket.
All income to date has been returned into the Junior set-up to improve our offering and better position for future growth. Your contribution to this Crowdfunder will be doubled because SportNI have pledged to double our target (SportNI - Build Back Better "ACTIVATE").
CLEAR PATHWAYS for GIRLS CRICKET
Parallel and complementary Pathways at School and Club that produce tremendous synergies and lead the Girls towards realising their maximum potential at the end of their individual path.
1. SCHOOL PATHWAY
Holywood Cricket Club will offer in-school cricket to 7 Primary Schools and 4 Secondary / Grammar Schools in Holywood, North Down and East Belfast. We will teach the fundamentals to all girls and offer them a clear and mapped pathway (which they do not have currently) to progress through school and club from softball to hardball and possibly into Representative and International opportunities. Alongside in-school Cricket we will arrange and host soft ball tournaments and hard ball matches for these schools at Seapark. We hosted 3 Tournaments (softball) pre COVID for U11, U13, 15 for 12 schools and we want to restart and strengthen the position of these events as annual events in the School Calendar that are to be looked forward to. A new feature we want to add is School v School hardball matches (we would organise and host these matches at Holywood, with our Club providing all equipment).
All girls we have an interaction with are encouraged to join our Club (this is the "complementary" nature of the Pathways).
2. CLUB PATHWAY
The Club Pathways is a parallel and complementary pathway to the schools pathway. The Club Pathway can't exist without the School Pathway
Through the Holywood Cricket Academy we offer additional opportunities for Girls through a "Dads / Mums and DAUGHTERS"entry level class call "Mini Bouncers" (Saturdays age 3 to 5), leading into our CRICKETEERS Programme (Wednesdays for age 5 to 11) where #1 goal is fun, which is delivered through innovative games devised by John Hunter. At CRICKETEERS in particular the fundamentals of almost all sport are practiced (running, jumping, throwing, catching, striking (the ball)). Additionally our Girls Cricket Section, the Aces, have additional all-girl sessions on Mondays.
We want to build on our few softball Club v Club fun "matches" that we played in 2021 ad-hoc into a structured league; softball at first, but one that progresses into hard ball girls cricket (that currently doesn't exist at a Club v Club level. There are no Clubs who play Girls v Girls Cricket in our Province (NCU). But our softball girls Team will evolve along with 3 to 4 other Clubs into a hardball team / league as the Girls get older and more experienced) and then into the Women's team.
Girls have traditionally never been offered a meaningful or sustained opportunity to play Club or School Cricket. We have begun to change that but remain far from successful in our goal. We need your help to continue this progress by funding adequate supplies of the right ball for both Pathways.
WHAT WE WOULD LIKE YOUR MONEY FOR ? (see below)
All money will be used for a variety of balls in different sizes, materials and weights. These balls will last multiple years. For example, oversized foam balls (best suited to "Mini Bouncers" but also to CRICKETEERS), tennis balls, RAM Softee balls, heavier RAM Poly Soft balls, BOLA bowling machine balls Junior size, hard balls Junior size, training aid mats with indicated feet and ball positions for different shot types, slalom poles to control bat path and also on the bowling side for controlling the path direction of the run-up and follow-though).
With this equipment we will have the right ball size and weight for a specific age group. Age 5 to 7 may use oversize foam balls and tennis balls, while age 9+ will move into softee balls and poly soft balls, progressing in the early teens to first using our existing bowling machines (with Junior balls) and then introduced to hard ball aged 13 - 15.
THE SUCCESS WE'VE ALREADY HAD
1. SCHOOL PATHWAY
Clockwise. Winning 2019 Strathearn Team (softball U15s); Winner's Trophy; Action from Final with Wallace High School; Sullivan Bobcats U13 Winners
2. CLUB PATHWAY
Clockwise. Holywood CC U11 girls softball team and Coaches (2021); Holywood Aces Girls / Women's hardball team 2021; Amy and Katherine Boyle 2019 in their 1st hard ball match; Holywood CC U11 girls softball team Victory Pyramid (2021). The Holywood Girls' Brand "The Aces"
COST BREAKDOWN
£204.95 (40 foam balls 16cm diameter)
£204.95 (40 foam balls 20cm diameter)
£375.10 (480 foam balls 7cm diameter)
£571.75 (600 tennis balls)
£677.95 (360RAM Softee balls)
£112.99 (60 Windball orange)
£900 (200 Poly Soft)
£460 (120 BOLA Junior bowling machine balls)
£450 (40 Youth hardball)
£988 (4 batting mats for shot type coaching with varying tee heights and positions (www.cricketcoachingmats.com))