Guiseley Cricket Club Funding Appeal 2022

Aim

To support our aim to upgrade our facilities and playing areas to provide first class facilities for all.

Why are we Fundraising in 2022?

Guiseley Cricket Club is fundraising to help complete our nets project which despite being completed in May requires additional funds to pay for landscaping, spoil clearance and new welcome entrance to avoid mud being dragged into the new facility. We also need to raise funds for the club which covered the increase in the cost of the nets project which has impacted the clubs finances and ability to invest in new equipment and projects.

We aim to fundraise the for the following reasons:

1) Our new nets cost approximately £10,000 (approximately 20% increase) more than was originally budgeted for, due to global price rises in matrials and additional activities that were not part of the budget. The clubs finances have been massively impacted by the additional costs and we need to raise funds to support the club through the remainder of the summer and winter when our revenues reduce.

2) We urgently need to landscape around the new practice nets facilities to make the area safe and a pleasant environment. currently we have a large amount of spoil from the nets construction which needs to be removed and replaced with a landscaped area. We also need to construct a welcome mat area in front of the main entrance to reduce mud being taken into the facility. Please see photos below of the areas that need attention.

3) We need to invest in new equipment to support practice both through the summer and winter. We have a large junior section which will benefit from this continued investment by the club. This will include new scoring, playing equipment and new junior equipment to meet the demands of this thriving section.

About our club

Guiseley Cricket Club is located 10 miles north of Leeds in West Yorkshire along the A65 main road surrounded by the rolling hills in the lower Wharfedale valley. We are a family oriented club and one of the founder members of the Aire-Wharfe Senior & Junior Cricket League (https://awscl.play-cricket.com). 

We have a long and proud tradition within the Aire-Wharfe senior and junior cricket league being one of the founding members. We have 250 members and over 100 playing members across our senior and junior teams (we have 3 senior teams and 7 junior sections). We also run a Friday fun cricket evening for 5-7 year olds which has 50 places for children to get their first taster of cricket at Guiseley.

Why are we doing this?

As with many sports clubs up and down the country COVID-19 in 2020/21 and general cost of living price rises in 2022 has hit our finances hard. Despite the increase in cost of our nets and overall running costs of the club we have invested our savings into the new nets project to complete this in time for the new season supporting both senior and junior activities.  This reduced income has left us struggling to fund our core cricket activities let alone invest in our facilities or training equipment. We need support from the community to help us stabilise our finances, create a safe and pleasant environment to play cricket and continue to invest in facilities and equipment to benefit all our cricketing sections and local community.

A REMINDER OF OUR PREVIOUS NET FACILITIES!

With over 100 active playing members and 200 social members, the need to have useable and safe playing facilities is essential especially with the increasingly unpredictable British summers where access to our grass wickets is not always possible for all age groups. We need to improve our artificial training facilities which are now very old (20 years since they were put in) and essential for our junior section to have practice facilities to sustain the number of teams we run each year. We also need to improve our facilities which are used by the local community for a wide range of activities and as an openspace for exercise.

The Old Nets..

The Guiseley cricket ground is open and we frequently suffer with vandalism and damage to our facilities and nets which is a constant repair cost we have to pay out each year. We currently have multiple large tears in our nets and we have resorted to temporary patching to ensure the facilities are safe for all concerned.

What we have today!

Guiseley CC have now completed our nets project and we now have fantastic facilities which are used every day by our junior and senior sections. After last years fantastic fundraising effort and support from the club finances we have been able to deliver the nets project in time for the new season.

What we are Looking to Fund:

We have 3 main aims for the fundraising:

1) Our new nets cost approximately £10,000 (approximately 20% increase) more than was originally fundraised due to global price rises in matrials. The clubs finances have been massively impacted by the additional costs and we need to raise funds to support the club through the remainder of the summer and winter when our revenues reduce.

2) Safeguarding the land around the nets. We urgently need to landscape around the new practice nets facilities to make the area safe and a pleasant environment. currently we have a large amount of spoil from the nets construction which needs to be removed and replaced with a landscaped area.

3) We need to invest in new equipment to support play and practice both through the summer and winter. We have a large junior section which will benefit from this continued investment by the club (scoreboards, wickets, balls, playing equipment etc).

Please Help Us!

Guiseley Cricket club needs your help to raise the required funds to start work on our aims and to deliver the facilities needed by our club and the local community to play sport and use as an open space.

Please donate as much as you can and help us deliver this project as soon as possible. This crowdfunding campaign will hopefully provide us with the opportunity to get back on track, and if we can reach our £7500 target over the coming weeks and even our stretch target of £10k, Sport England may consider us for an additional pledge towards our cause.

Thank You!

This project successfully funded on 31st August 2022