Kirkby Lonsdale Rugby Club - Flood lights

Who are we?

Kirkby Lonsdale Rugby Club is a local rugby club based in South Cumbria bordering both Lancashire and Yorkshire that has served the local community for over 140 years. In that time it has helped to instil the values that rugby is famous for into a huge number of men and women, both on and off the field. 

Kirkby Lonsdale RUFC currently runs two senior sides, a colts team, four girls sections u18, u16, u14 & u12 and a full junior section from micros to U15s, catering for all ages and abilities. The 1st XV compete in the Level 6 of the league structure in England. In addition to this the club also has a highly successful youth and junior section with recent successes in the county cup.

Our club has been proactive in setting up the girls sections in the surrounding area teaming up with other clubs to ensure our girls in South Cumbria have access to rugby and allowing them to play meaningful games.

We pride ourselves in our role with in the community and allowing access to all of our facilities for them to use. We have people from the brass band, campers, the community kitchen and general use of the hall for functions. We strive as a club to better each child and give them not only rugby skills and enjoyment but help teach them life skills of teamwork, discipline and respect through all our volunteer coaches.

We currently have over 300 registered players with an age range of 5 to 50. There are over 1000 members of the community regularly interacting with the club.

This project is being spearheaded by John Ladell & Gareth Gore. Both have played for the senior club, coached the senior sides and also currently coach for the U14s & U15s respectively. Additional to this, the pair, have helped ensure the club has been run through volunteering themselves on the mini & youth and senior committees.

You can contact them on John - 07887565509 ([email protected]) or Gareth - 07703529886 ([email protected]) to discuss anything about this project.

Why are we crowdfunding?

This year the club has plans to replace the ageing flood lights. The floodlights are becoming inadequate to support our ever growing sections. The current system is dated and expensive to run. With all clubs, and we are not different, we need to look to reduce our energy bills and replacing the lights for LED versions will help towards this.

We have the two senior sides, colts, girls section, and five age grade boys teams trying to use the current lighting facilities on one pitch which are failing. We want to ensure we can continue to provide open access to the facilities, allowing our players to continue to thrive.

Our club has grown rapidly in recent years with the growing demand of our new members, we desperately need to be able to offer facilities for the mixture of boys and girls junior members as well as our adult members. 

These community based activities are helping the local villagers to socialise, thereby improving mental health and well-being something which is all too important as a result of recent years.

The project will significantly reduce energy consumption and our carbon foot print through a 60% saving on electricity usage. We aim to significantly reduce our carbon footprint as a club with further projects for solar PV in the future and GSHP. The focus on being net zero eventually.

How we’ll spend the money raised

The aim of this project is to replace the current lighting we have over one pitch (retaining the existing stanchions). The control boxes at each stansion will be replaced with new cabling running in trenches from the club. Additionally, we will fully light up a second area for use in training and games.

A professional sports lighting company will be engaged to carry out all the work on our behalf ensuring it is installed correctly, safely, and optiamlly. This will provide better facilities for future generations and allow the club to continue to grow and develop.

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 Floodlight Fund and we’ll continue our fundraising work to deliver on what the club needs.

All the money raised is for a specialist company, already quoted, to replace the energy consuming halogen failing fixtures to LED, with modern controls allowing for greater use and control. This will significantly reduce our carbon footprint and running costs but also still being able to use the facilities.

How you can play your part

There are a few 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

Thank you for taking the time to read about our project, hopefully it gives you an insight of what our club is about and how important it is to the local community. If you would like to donate we would be very grateful whatever the size of the donation.