Encouraging rural sport with Langford Cricket Club's community pavilion rebuild
by Tom Stevens in Lechlade, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
This will allow the pavilion to be finished to a higher specification internally. Currently the budget includes a re-used kitchen without hobs and we would love to be able to ensure the kitchen is build to as high a standard as possible.
Birmingham 2022 showed us how powerful projects like the new Pavilion can be for facilitating improvements in community engagement, such as: supporting volunteers, developing skills & training & making sure the cricket club is accessible for all generations, especially within our juniors set-up. We hope the pavilion project can continue to unite our local community in the same way only 11-days of the Commonwealth Games has. Particularly inspirational for members of the club was the debut for women's cricket at the Commonwealth Games. Many of our members, of all backgrounds and genders, felt cricket at the games demonstrated on the international stage that cricket can be a truly inclusive sport and inspirational to all. We are keen to build on that and create an inclusive environment that allows everyone to flourish.
Langford Cricket Club is at the heart of our local community. For most of the year, except the cold winter months, the cricket club is the social hub for players, volunteers, supporters and locals alike.
Over the last couple of years we have made significant improvements to the club's facilities as our membership has grown from single figures in 2008 to over 200 in 2023.
Sadly a facility we have not been able to improve yet, due to the significant expense and the impact of Covid-19 on the clubs finances, is our pavilion.
The pavilion in its current state prevents us from being able to hold larger events to support the community. The current pavilion's age has begun to show & its integrity has begun to fail.
The new pavilion will provide significantly more space for players of all ages & genders, but it will also be built with community events in mind with a large social area.
The club is the main location for village events, like our annual six-a-side tournament, beer festivals, BBQs, village days and socials. These socials support a rural community with few alternatives in the area. Langford has no shops or social groups, so the cricket club provides a core outlet for young and old to remain active and social.
Currently, these events have to be hosted outside or in temporary marquees, as the current pavilion is not fit-for-purpose.
We want the 2023 season to be our last in the old pavilion & we have ambitious fundraising & build plans to help us reach our target.
To build a pavilion in a way that can sustain our community for at least a decade the total cost of the project is £120,000. So far we have raised £70,000 & we're aiming to raise £20,000 through the Crowdfunding campaign.
Here's a rough breakdown of the what it will cost for to build a sustainable community hub:
Our planning has been submitted to the local council, so if it goes to plan, our aim is to have raised the money and instructed the builders to have started work in October 2023.
With the help of Crowdfunder & the Sport England Return to Play: Active Together campaign, in 2021/22 we ran an extremely successful effort to fund the installation of our new state-of-the-art nets. We raised £20,000. The nets were successfully installed in May and became a focal point for the club towards the end of the season.
Over the last 5-years, the cricket club's volunteer network with the support of local businesses, have made significant improvements to the club's facilities and infrastructure:
We are completely dedicated to supporting grassroots cricket, rural communities and wellbeing.
After the club folded in the early 2000's and thanks to the efforts of a dedicated network of unpaid volunteers, our small village club now supports several teams:
Juniors:
Senior (squad of 70+) - men's and women's
Langford Cricket Club now has over 200 playing members, with 100 per cent of the membership base living in the local area or returning to it regularly. Our retention rate of members from 16-20 years old, a time when traditionally sports clubs struggle to retain players as they move on to other places and pursue other interests (leaving the area for jobs, moving away for university etc) is extremely high.
Of our 70 strong men's section, the average age is just 23, which, when compared to other cricket clubs, is quite striking, with the womens side not far behind. There is also notable mixing across the men's and womens teams, with many women joining the men's side for training and coaching being shared across the two sides.
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