MRFC Multifunctional Space

Some background:

MRFC, Established in 1982, is a community amateur sports club (CASC) with some 450 members aged from 6 to 70+. Until 2010 the club never had a home ground, operating from the boots of cars and renting pitches from local land owners, schools, competing clubs and the National Trust on Minchinhampton Common. The club thrived despite these challenges. 

In 2010 the club committee recognised that MRFC needed a home of its own and set out a three phase plan to develop a home ground. The club completed those three phases and you will see at our site at Hollybush, just outside Minchinhampton, the results of all of that hard work. The club continues to go from strength to strength. Which brings us on the our current campaign.

Covid has had a big affect on our club revenues , weekly match fees and catering takings evaporated for the best part of 12 months . In addition to this , we had to cancel two annual dinners and a Summer Ball planned for Summer 2021 which would have been good fundraising opportunities for us .

Current Project:

Our ‘Phase 4’ is to now add to our facilities in the form of a multifunctional space, with additional toilet/shower facilities in addition to enhanced Referee/ Coach areas and further club storage. The cost of this project, plus some other small clubhouse works, has been costed at £100,000.

The club has been ring fencing its surpluses for a period of time to put towards this project and the club's Executive Committee have also made significant personal donations. However, we are now looking for further support to help us reach our target. 

Crowdfunding, via the Active Together fund, forms a significant part of the funds we are looking to raise. The beauty of this fund is that the money we can raise is partially matched and topped up by the fund itself. We are looking to raise in the region of £20,000 via our crowdfunding campaign. 

In addition to the building mentioned above we are also looking to fund secure cycle racks so visitors to our site would, for the first time, have an area to house their cycles. Our hope is that this will encourage our local visitors to cycle to our facility, rather than drive reducing the traffic around the site and aiding their fitness and well being. We would look to create cycle racks in keeping with our semi-rural location, in materials consistent with the rest of our facility, perhaps with a living roof.

Your club needs you:

We are now asking our members, former members and other friends of the club if they can help us.

We are asking for donations, of any size, to help us reach our £20,000 Crowdfunding target. Please remember your donation also gets partially matched by the Active Together fund, so we actually receive more than your donation alone. The more you donate, the greater the matched funds we receive. Please also remember you can also claim gift aid credit on your tax return, if you complete one, and for businesses any donations would be allowable against your tax bill!

We feel the multifunctional space will add a very useful additional facility for the benefit of all sections of the club.

Although we would be incredibly grateful of donations of all sizes, we will be recognising all donations of £250 or above with a plaque in the new facility, in a similar way to the tile scheme used for the main clubhouse build. So if you want your name on the wall, please remember that £250 benchmark.

We have included some of the outline plans for your information.

Our members have helped us massively to get to where are today, with so many donating to our initial build, we hope you all feel as generous in this round of ‘bucket rattling’ and we cannot thank you enough for your continued support. You should all be very proud of what we have created thus far.

Executive Committee

Minch RFC