Sport England: Active Together has provided £6,000 of match funding
Lighting up Winstanley Tennis Club
Wigan, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom
Aim
To install LED floodlighting at Winstanley Tennis Club to enable more time for tennis by extending play into the darker evenings
Who are we?
Winstanley Tennis Club has just celebrated its centenary year. We are at the heart of the local community and have a diverse and growing membership, representing all age groups, walks of life and tennis ability, including beginners, social players and league competitors. We also offer extensive coaching opportunities to both members and non-members, including local disability groups, thus encouraging as many people as possible to give tennis a go and enjoy the social, physical and mental benefits that playing tennis brings.
Covid 19 has hit the club hard
The pandemic has restricted playing opportunities, social events and fundraising events since early 2020. However, since the courts have re-opened, we have seen an unprecedented level of demand to play and our membership numbers have grown by almost 20% as people look to engage in new activities to combat the impact of lock-down on their physical and mental well-being.
The Problem - It’s a daylight thing
We enter numerous teams into local league competitions from juniors through to senior age categories. We also organise regular social tennis events which all have to be scheduled around daylight hours. Once September comes, many events unfortunately wind down until the new season starts again in April. Playing opportunities then become much more limited and largely restricted to weekends only for those players working full time. The club currently has only one court with old floodlights that are expensive to run and cannot meet the needs of the 200+ members.
Our Solution - Additional LED floodlighting
We can satisfy the increased demand we now have by installing modern, energy-efficient LED floodlights on three of our newly re-surfaced courts. This will allow all-year availability of the tennis courts, creating far more playing opportunities for everyone.
In 2021, we acquired planning permission to install these much-needed additional floodlights and have since then embarked on the task of seeking the funding need for the installation.
The Challenge - Raising £45,000
The cost of installing the new floodlighting, including the upgrade of the existing single court lights to LED, is almost £45,000. The good news is, we have already managed to raise £30,000 via grants, plus some local fundraising events.
We now hope that this Crowdfunding campaign will take us across the finishing line. By securing the grants we have and by hopefully raising the additional funds needed from Crowdfunding, this will help us to avoid reliance on loans and help keep membership fees and lighting costs to a minimum.
The Future - More tennis for all
Once we have achieved our target and monies have been received, we expect to start installation of the floodlighting during Summer 2022. The club will then be able to offer significantly more playing opportunities already from September.
Thank you so much for supporting our campaign.
This project successfully funded on 14th March 2022