Overhang - New Bouldering Area

Aim

We want to provide more bouldering for our lovely climbers but we need a little help getting to the finish line!

Hi Everyone,

It's John and Helena from the Overhang Climbing Centre in Carmarthen. We originally started Overhang back in 2014 in Tenby and built an indoor climbing wall and bouldering area inside an old RLNI lifeboat house. We really should have called it the Tardis! It was quite small but quirky and unique and we had such an amazing climbing community.

(Inside the old church - lots of work to be done before we could start building.)

We relocated to Carmarthen in 2019 after handing the Tenby building back to the RLNI who needed to relocate their inshore lifeboat. We decided to rebuild the Overhang inside a big old church! After a fairly long clean up process due to the building not being used for almost 20 years and the Covid-19 pandemic, we finally opened our doors in December 2020. But then we have to close 2 weeks later because of Covid-19 and eventually reopened in May 2021.

(Photo below of one of the main rope climbing walls inside the centre.)

We need your help.

In our original plans we had a 2nd phase to the build. This was to build an upstairs bouldering area. Due to the pandemic we lost almost a years worth of revenue along with the money we had put aside for the build. this unfortunately went into paying rent and staff wages along with business loans for the first part of the build. We're sure you remember that visitor numbers were also limited buy social distancing rules once we reopened and the bouldering area build had to be put on hold. 

Now that things have almost gone back to the way it was before the pandemic we are ready to continue with the project. We have secured a business loan but this will only take us so far. We need to try and raise an extra £10,000 to finish the project but if we get any extra we can buy more climbing holds and volumes and potentially fund the downstairs training room!

We will have over 90m2 of bouldering upstairs on the mezzanine, and will have various angled walls and a seating area to watch the bouldering and the rope climbers in the main area.

Our Climbing Community

Since opening in December 2020 we have had such a warm welcome from the local community. We even had lots of people volunteering on the initial build and more than one of them have become part of our staff team over the past few years!

Our members have grown in numbers over the last 2 years and it's great to hear such positive feedback from them. We only have a small bouldering area currently and it will be great to give our customers some more space!

How you can play your part

There are three 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. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored climb 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!

This project successfully funded on 1st September 2023