Old Brentwoods Club: Access for All

Aim: To elevate the Old Brentwoods Club's offering to all by improving accessibility to its facilities

We need a lift to elevate our potential to grow and strengthen the opportunities we can provide for all people.... and we need your help! 

Who we are

The Old Brentwoods Club is an open, community sports and social club with over 600 members, of all ages, playing and supporting a wide range of sports and activities, built upon the ethos of promoting strong and long-lasting friendships. With 5 to 10 thousand visiting sports persons each year and more than 3,000 local school children attending sports events, the Club offers opportunities to get involved in competitive and social sports clubs and provides clubhouse facilities to host a range of events within the Function Suite and grounds. There's something for (nearly**) everyone in our community to benefit, from Acorns Rugby and PC& Roo’s Children Holiday Activity Camps for the younger generation, to Veteran’s football and wider community activities including Brentwood Jazz Club and Brentwood & District Metal Detecting Club for the older citizens.

The clubhouse has a spacious bar and social area with great views over the surrounding countryside, making it an ideal venue for sports events, private parties, wedding receptions, wakes, business meetings and dinners. It is an area that importantly provides a welcoming space for people to build connections with others.

Why we are crowdfunding

We need to ensure that our club is accessible and welcoming to anyone who would like to enjoy the facilities, participate or engage with the sports and attend events. **However, the clubhouse is a two-storey building with step-only access to the hub of the club, the function suite. This therefore excludes a large number of people from being able to enjoy this space and our potential to offer a more diverse range of sporting initiatives. 

How we will spend the money raised

As you will have seen in the video, we are therefore on a mission to raise money to make our clubhouse facilities truly accessible for all by:

• Installing a lift
• Installing ramps from the car park to the entrance
• Installing automatic doors at the entrance to the clubhouse and entrance to the function suite
• Installation of a new disabled toilet on the 1st floor
• Renovation of the existing Ladies and Men's toilets

To make this project a reality, we need to ask for your help! 

By contributing you will be making a difference in the community and to your local sports and social club. Improving the accessibility of the club will allow us to better support all those that require lift assistance, enabling us to invite a wider audience to both participate and engage in sports or social activities at the Club.

We have an immediate target of £20,000 by the end of May 2023, with a stretch target of £60,000, to enable us to deliver this lasting positive change to our Club. The immediate target will enable installation of the lift and provide step-free access from the car park to the Function Suite, and all money raised over and above this will be used to provide a disabled toilet on the same floor as the Function Suite, and do much needed refurbishments to the male and female toilets.

Quotes

“The Cricket Club was approached in recent years by Essex CCC, given the quality of our cricket square and overall facilities, asking to use the grounds for disability cricket but when they became aware that the bar, eating area and other facilities were on the first floor and  there was no lift, they couldn’t progress with this” - Old Brentwoods Cricket Club Manager

"I am currently waiting for a hip operation and it is a struggle making it up the stairs to the bar after watching sport and observed that a lift would have made my pint with friends come a lot quicker!" - Old Brentwoods Member

Our Project and ‘United by Birmingham 2022’

Remember the Commonwealth Games in 2022? It was the first time that para sport events were integrated throughout the days of competitions, not as an add-on or afterthought at the end. By having a lift, making the other planned accessibility improvements at the OB Club, and being able to accommodate disability sportspeople and supporters, alongside our existing provision, we will really be embracing and championing our diverse local community. We hope to inspire and engage all our club users, in whatever activity they undertake with us, to their full potential and help improve their health and wellbeing. Our project can benefit from Sport England matched funding – another legacy from Birmingham 2022.

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 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! 

4. If you want to run your own fundraiser to support us, maybe a sponsored activity or similar, use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won't need any bank details. Just a fun idea!