New Sports Hall Heaters for Markland Hill

Who are we?

Markland Hill Racquets Club was founded in 1927 to provide Tennis facilities, by means of 6 dedicated Tennis courts, in the local community. Squash courts were added at a later date and in 1970 Bolton Badminton Club agreed to merge with the Club. A new indoor hall was constructed providing 4 Badminton Courts and 1 Tennis court overlaid. Subsequently a small but effective gym space was created. This was the basis of the club we now have to date and is one of the best venues for Badminton in the North West. The badminton courts are used regularly by the Lancashire  County Badminton Association for tournaments and matches and also by Badminton England for the Senior Leagues. In the last few years we have offered pickleball which has been very popular and is now our largest section at the club.

The Club has a membership of over made up of Full Adult Sports Members, Students, Young, Junior 12-17 and Junior 5-11 categories. All the members have access to all 3 racquet sports. The Club is run by a small but dedicated collection of members.

Why are we crowdfunding?

We have completed a crowdfunding campaign before and it was a resounding success that enabled the club to be able to upgrade the changing facilities post the Covid pandemic and allowed us to replace the fencing on the tennis courts so that they were safe for the community to use.

Following these successes we wished to do it again to raise funds for another crucial improvement that will benefit the local community.

We have also received a pledge from Sport England to match 50% of what is raised up to £7,500 in total and this will go a long way in helping us to deliver the project.

How we’ll spend the money raised

We wish to continue to expand our junior tennis, pickleball and badminton offering by upgrading/replacing our heating systems, in the sports hall of the club, which are now at least 20 years old. 

Currently, our hall has condensation issues as the floor is much colder than the air at certain times of the year. By having less condensation on the floor, it will mean that we can put on more back to back sessions at the club.

We also wish to look into upgrading our energy efficiency at the club to keep the club open and warm for the community.

Community impact

Our sports hall is used for mini tennis (which is attended by a large number of juniors from many ethnic backgrounds and we also have some girls only sessions that are well attended by members of the Islamic community). Our badminton section use the hall daily and these sessions are well attended by members of the LQBTQ+ community. Our Pickleball section now has sessions each day and many sessions during working hours in the week that are well attended by pensioners and older people. Many of the people who are attending the pickleball sessions have historically been inactive and this is the first racquet sport that they have tried to play and many have gone on to become full members of the club.

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!