Pangbourne Tennis Club is a well-established, welcoming and inclusive local club, passionate about getting people of all ages to play tennis. We have an active and growing membership of over 160 adults and 120 juniors.
We offer coaching programmes for adults of all abilities provided by Berkshire LTA’s top coach and an excellent and popular juniors coaching programme.
We have 6 teams competing in the Newbury and District league and run social tennis sessions several times a week as well as fun days and tournaments throughout the year.
We are a relatively small clubs with 3 outdoor courts and, like most clubs, our finances were severely impacted by the Covid pandemic, especially as this coincided with the need to re-surface and re-spray our courts.
Since Covid we have seen a surge in membership. We certainly want to encourage more people to actively engage and participate in sports. We visit local primary schools with our LTA coach to provide free tennis taster sessions and encourage younger children to take up the sport. We run coaching programmes for juniors but are limited to the spring and summer months due to daylight hours.
We now need to meet an increased demand for court time from both individual bookings and coaching or social activities. An efficient way of achieving this is to install modern LED lighting, enabling activities to take place throughout the year and making use of those dark autumn and winter evenings. This is especially beneficial to working adults and school age children who cannot play during the day, other than weekends.
We have ambitious plans to continue growing the club activities and membership and LED lighting is a proven way of achieving this. But it is very expensive! Our finances are slowly improving following the difficult Covid years and whilst the Club will contribute a significant portion of this investment, we need your help to make up the shortfall and enable this investment to go forward, hence this crowdfunding campaign. Every donation however small will be greatly appreciated.
We have worked hard for this project and already obtained planning permission in March. We have approached suppliers and selected a proven contractor based on many similar installations. We have built up club funds to provide about half of the required investment. We have secured some additional funding and are running multiple fundraising events but your help is still required. Once we reach our target we will be able to commit with the supplier and proceed with the installation of the much needed LED lighting.
All club members and the wider local community will benefit from the increased availability of three, well-maintained, illuminated courts. This is particularly important for busy working adults and school-age children who will be able to play weekday evenings all year round. Court lighting will significantly expand the time available for play outside the summer months. As well as facilitating a greater amount of social tennis and enabling our teams to compete in the winter league, lighting will also allow the expansion of regular club coaching sessions, especially the very popular junior programme.
We are very proud of our junior activities at the Club. Our coaching programme has grown over the years and is now one of the largest ones in Berkshire. We are particularly proud that many of our junior players have become tennis ambassadors and competitors: three of our older juniors now assist our coach during the younger children sessions and are working towards getting their LTA coaching accreditation; and several of our older junior players take part regularly in the adult team league matches!
We are also very keen to welcome adult players of all abilities. We have expanded our coaching offers to include "Start to Play" and "Back to Tennis" programmes for adults new to tennis or returning to tennis who may not otherwise feel confident to grab a racquet and play.
Both adult and junior programmes are often oversubscribed and court lighting will be a tremendous help to boost capacity and spread activities throughout the year.
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 with your friends and family, through your personal and professional network and on your social media pages. Every donation, even small, will be a tremendous help and the more people we reach, the more likely we are to reach our target!
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating goods or services which we can offer to our supporters. Several examples are already listed in the "rewards" section on this page. Please use the "contact project" link at the top of this page to get in touch with the project team.
Firstly, a very big thank you to our Platinum and Gold Sponsors for their generous donations:
Patrick Williams, part of Belvoir (Platinum Sponsor)
Estate Agents at 4a Station Road Pangbourne
https://www.patrickwilliams.co.uk/pangbourne
Cobbs (Gold Sponsor), Farm Shop & Kitchen at Englefield
https://www.cobbsfarmshops.co.uk/
Barrett Wealth and Vaughan Wealth (Gold sponsors) at 19 Reading Road, Pangbourne
http://barrett-wealth.co.uk/
https://vaughanwealth.co.uk/
Next, special thanks to:
- The Cross Keys, Pangbourne, for hosting our fundraising quiz night and donating food on the day
- The Mighty Triple O Band, for playing at no charge at our Summer Ball
- A well known Club Member and his partner for hosting the Summer Ball at their riverside property
We would also like to thank the following businesses in Pangbourne and nearby who have donated goods or services to help us with our fundraising:
- Lamborghini Pangbourne
- The Eye Club
- Nino's Trattoria
- Morris Molley Interior Design (Mapledurham)
- EmpoweredParenting
- Flexiflame (Tilehurst)
- Beale Park
- Berkshire's Oh My Nosh
- The Swan at Pangbourne
- La De Kitchen
- Whitchurch Massage
- PR Motors (Tidmarsh)
- Laithwaites Theale
- Aston Martin of Pangbourne
- Miah's
- Timeless Clinic
- The Beauty Box
- Forresters
- Virgo
- Renegade Brewery
- Cozze
- Tropic Skincare
- Greens of Pangbourne
- Garlands Organics
- Pangbourne Nail Bar
- Traditional Turkish Barber 8 High Street
- Lina Tandoori
- The Cheese shop
- Franks Barber Shop
- O'Briens Cafe Bar
- Barking Mad
- Collins Hardware
- Pangbourne Cafe
We would also like to thank the many Club Members who have obtained or created and donated rewards e.g. hosting or donating a tennis & lunch party, garden party with afternoon tea, real tennis experience & exhibition, poker & cruise evening, language lessons, signed memorabilia, cakes, and more!
We also want to thank:
- Sport England for their generous contribution to this campaign in the form of a 30% match funding offer
- the Pangbourne Parish Council who have been very supportive of this project and the tennis club in general and have offered a grant towards the cost of the lighting project
- the Greenham Trust for their generous offer to match earlier fundraising achievements
Finally we thank the many volunteers, committee members and others, who have invested so much of their time to make this project possible.