Littletown CC Facilities "Kick Start" Campaign

Aim

Littletown CC want to develop its current social and indoor facilities to match their ever increasing number of participants and supporters.

Who are we?

Littletown Cricket Club was reformed in 2012 after the club and its facilities had been left to turn into a waste ground. Since then we have developed our facilities and teams to a point where we have more than 6 junior teams and 6 senior teams and are one of the fastest growing clubs in the country. Not only do we offer sporting opportunities for those of all ages but we also offer a wide range of volunteering and training opportunities.

Community impact

Our facility is the only community venue within the village and only cricket club within the surrounding area. Our junior setup is filled with players from the local area who have benefitted from the club reforming and in many cases wouldn't have had the opportunity to partake in the sport. We also offer cricket activities within our local schools and have offered free places on ECB's All Stars program which also included free equipment to local disadvantaged families.

Many locals who have no interest in cricket have benefitted from the activities and events we hold as well as using it as a social space to walk dogs, meet up with friends and enjoy the surroundings.

We have also used our facilities to host summer camps, local meetings, mental health awareness sessions and training sessions however this has only been on a limited numbers basis due to our small indoor space.

We see ourselves as a family community club and rely on our members and volunteers to run the club from top to bottom no matter what the job we always have people who will pitch in.

Why are we crowdfunding?

As a self-funded and volunteer led club, Covid-19 hit us financially hard, particularly as we rely on fundraising to keep the club running.  Over the last two years many of our planned activities and events had to be cancelled, events such as England Euro's Final was cancelled due to a Covid-19 outbreak at the club. This meant we took the decision to close our doors to prevent any further outbreak, costing the club a lot of potential earnings that would be used to develop the club and its facilities. These cancelled events have prevented us from developing the club further and following our 5 year development plan.

Our current indoor facilities are only small with us only being able to fit around 30 people inside this was affected further when Covid-19 restriction's were in place. This made it near impossible to carry out any activities/events particularly with the unpredictable British weather in full swing. We were also hit by a Cowboy builder who was tasked with carrying out necessary works, only for these repairs to become a health and safety hazard. We then had to use additional funds which the club struggled to pay in order to complete the works to a safe and appropriate standard . Due to Covid-19 many of the revenue streams and grants that we would previously have gone for are no longer available to us, which has also affected our development and with the dramatic increase in members over recent years we really need to plough ahead with plans to keep the club moving forward and financially viable.

How we’ll spend the money raised

With our ever increasing participants, supporters and guests in attendance on a weekly basis we need to improve our indoor facilities by increasing our capacity further; so we can offer appropriate viewing areas, host education and training sessions particularly around mental health and equality and diversity in sport as well as hold new events and activities.

We identified that we need an additional log cabin building that would add on to the side of our current structure and increase our indoor capacity to around 90 which would be three times the current capacity. This would help in increasing the club's ongoing revenue stream long term, enabling us to have the facilities to hold our own events in all weather conditions and right across the year. It would also help us to run new events and activities from the club, increase food and drink sales and enable us to hold education courses to our members and the local community.

This new facility would also provide a safe indoor social setting where club members and supporters can gather, as well as having potential for hire.  It would also allow us to cater more to our diverse members and make them feel more at home and relaxed.

Our Project aims

• Improve indoor facilities and capacity's
• Improve engagement opportunities
• Deliver more events and activities
• More focus on community involvement and Participation

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 and claim your reward. 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 yourself. 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. Create a fundraiser of your own. Use the button on our page to get started. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!

This project successfully funded on 29th April 2022