Who are we?
Kendal Rugby Club is a busy sports and social club, providing high-end facilities for its users and visitors. The Club comprises a large bar and busy function room both boasting beautiful views over the main grass rugby pitch and nearby fells. The Club has served the local community since 1905 and in that time has built a solid reputation for instilling the values that rugby is famous for on and off the pitch
Kendal Rugby Club currently runs three senior sides, a colt’s team, is an active partner of the Tri Counties partnership for girl’s rugby. We have active U15, U14 & U12 teams and a full junior section from minis to U11s, catering for all ages and abilities. We also have a weekly walking rugby group the Auld Greys for the over 55s and run Touch Rugby sessions twice a week. We also have an active Social Team.
The 1XV compete in the Level 5 of the league structure in England. Our Women’s Team, Kendal Wasps compete in Women's Championship North 2. In addition to this, the club also has a highly successful youth and junior section with our colts recently reaching the County Cup Final.
Why are we crowdfunding?
Like many other organisations, our club is being hugely hit by the price increases relating to the cost-of-living crisis, including soaring energy costs. Which have seen our costs increase on average from £2.5k per month to just over £10k during the winter period.
Compounding this we recently suffered from some large and unexpected costs for equipment and repairs to make the club safe. The bill for urgent works to our water heating system, which involved replacing two boilers and installing a fire suppression system in our kitchens has come to £54,000.
This summer, the club has plans to improve our playing offer to our players and visitors by giving our main pitch some urgent attention. It has become apparent, over the last two rugby seasons that in certain areas of our pitch the drainage, is not working effectively and is leaving areas water logged. This is having an impact on playing/training space availability, with many teams not able to train on a grass pitch!
We have the three senior sides, colts, girls section, and five age grade boys’ teams, plus our minis trying to use the grass pitch. Space is at a premium and is growing due to increasing numbers, however more often than not, this space has to be protected, to allow it to recover following heavy rainfall. Unfortunately, being based in the beautiful Lake District can have its disadvantages, as we have more rain than most.
We want to keep providing first class facilities for the South Lakes community, but with the cost of living crisis and soaring energy costs, we need your help to ensure we can continue to provide this first class facility
We want to improve the appearance and maintenance of our main pitch, therefore increasing the number of those participating and watching rugby at Kendal Rugby Club
How we’ll spend the money raised
The aim of this project is to replace the bottom half our of main pitch. The original drainage system is laid in 5metre spacing; however, this particular area needs a sand-banding system.
Sand-banding is the ideal secondary drainage system, designed to work with existing lateral drains. Sand-banding provides rapid surface drainage and is ideal for areas prone to waterlogging.
A professional sports pitch company will be engaged to carry out the work on our behalf ensuring it is installed correctly and in a timely manner, ready for the start of season 24/25.
We’re using a ‘keep what you raise’ approach. This means that even if we fail to meet the funding goal within the time limit, we’ll still put any and all money raised into the Pitch Fund and we’ll continue our fundraising work.
All the money raised is for a specialist company, already quoted, to replace the drainage system to the bottom half of the pitch.
Community impact
Our community impact exists beyond the game of rugby itself. The provision of a broad range of teams ensures there are opportunities to take part in physical activity no matter your age, size, level of fitness of experience. There’s a place for everyone at Kendal Rugby Club. We know we are contributing to both the physical and mental well-being of our community. We not only provide opportunities to take part in rugby-based activities but a wide range of volunteering and developmental roles within the club – building leadership skills, practical skills and resources within Kendal.
We play an active role in our local community and are proud to be working in partnership with local football Academy GT7 who are based at Kendal Rugby Club. We open up our facilities to the local community and allow access to all of our facilities for them to use. We recently brought back the Community Fireworks to the town, after a gap since 2019. We have groups such as the Red Rose Harley Davidsons, Action Challenge and Vespas, which book our whole site for their events. We open up our space for camping and general use of our rooms for functions, events and meetings.
We strive as a club to better each individual player and child that joins our club to not only give rugby skills and enjoyment but help teach them life skills of teamwork, friendship, discipline and respect, all led by our volunteer coaches.
We currently have over 375 registered players with an age range of 5 to 83. There are over 100 volunteers who are at the heart of Kendal Rugby Club and give their time and commitment without question on a weekly basis
This project is being led by Chris Park and Daniel Stephens. Both have played for the senior team. Chris is now coaching the 1XV and Dan has recently taken the role of Director of Rugby for the club. They are both active members of the club, are true Black and Ambers and can be regularly seen in a number of volunteer roles across the club including, most recently helping out behind the bar
You can contact them via the club on [email protected] or 01539 734039 to discuss anything about this project.
How you can play your part
There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.
1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!
2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!
4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!
THANK YOU