Support Hawcoat Park Community Sports Club

Aim

Help secure the future of Hawcoat Park Community Sports Club, which is facing severe financial difficulty, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Corona Virus impact hits hard, so your community needs you.

Your help is needed to secure the future of Hawcoat Park Sports club. This fantastic organisation is feeling the effects of the Corona Virus  we are therefore running a crowdfunding  initiative to ensure its survival. We aim to raise £20,000 which if successful in raising that amount we are able to apply to the Active Together fund  from Sport England which could pay an extra £10,000.

• Hawcoat Park is your Community Sports Club which has provided top class sporting facilities for the Furness area for 95 years. Since 2008 the club has been run by volunteers and is self funding as a Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC) it is also a not for profit organisation. Based in Barrow-in-Furness which is an area with some of the most deprived wards in the country and a high level of childhood obesity. The benefits provided by participating in sport are widely recognised. Hawcoat Park offers a unique opportunity to contribute to the health and well being of the whole community. However Covid-19 has created an uncertain future for grass roots sports clubs, who are finding it very challenging to survive. It is no exaggeration to say it would be a disaster if these facilities were lost to the whole community.

Hawcoat Park is funded entirely by membership subscriptions and revenue from the bar and events held in the large function hall. 

The club closed its doors on the 23rd March and lost all its funding streams with no activities taking place, staff put on Furlough, with bills and expenses still to be paid. Unfortunately we have had to make staff redundant and are currently relying on volunteers to keep us going. This has resulted in a 50% reduction in our revenue.

Volunteers

Without our dedicated team of volunteers we would never have survive this pandemic the majority of whom are retired members who help maintain the ground's and club house. When we partially re-opened following the first lockdown they worked the bar and did the cleaning and will continue doing it when we re-open again. The Board of Directors are also all volunteers.   

We cater for members from 6 years of age to 96 and provide facilities for Archery, Crown green Bowls, Cricket, Football, Rugby, Shooting, Tennis and Table Tennis. The Tennis facilities have just undergone a £140,000 upgrade funded by various grant organisations including Sport England to become a state of the art Tennis hub and its official opening has had to be delayed. A number of local organisations use our facilities for their monthly meetings, Prostrate cancer support group, Furness Referees Society, Keswick to Barrow walk committee, Furness amateur radio club, Cascades dance troop, Furness scooter club as well as all the sporting sections. The club really is at the heart of the community.

Cancelled events in 2020

The Keswick 2 Barrow 40 mile charity walk which we host every year has been cancelled along with the all England crown green bowling championship and our hugely popular Bonfire and Fireworks display, Christmas cabaret dance, carol night and the annual Christmas quiz have also been cancelled. When you add the loss of our afternoon teas, craft fairs, private function bookings, sporting events that are still very limited having been on hold for seven month it should come as no surprise that this community sports club is facing a very uncertain future.

We are therefore reaching out to our local community to ask for your support to help us come through these very trying times to ensure this much needed community asset can survive and continue to provide for the people of the Furness area and beyond.

Our facilities

Our 22 acres of facilities and playing areas are unique and amongst the best in the North West with a wide programme of activities for all ages and abilities as well as hosting large charity fundraising events which attract thousands of people to the club and benefit a host of good causes. We also allocate free time to our local NHS and schools to use the refurbished Tennis courts.

Archery

Crown Green Bowls

Cricket

Junior Football

Football Seniors 

Rifle & Pistol Shooting

This project successfully funded on 14th December 2020