'Roll out the green carpet' for Bedford CC Juniors

Aim

To improve capacity and facilities on our fabulous Friday junior training nights we need a roll-out Flicx 2G pitch and portable nets

Who are we?

Bedford Cricket Club is an ethnically diverse, friendly and vibrant community with a real ambition to widen opportunities to play cricket, as well as provide high quality coaching and games to allow children to realise their potential. We have 3 adult teams, junior teams from u9 to u15, a women's team and a girl's team. Overall, we have seen demand increase significantly post-Covid19, after a non-existent 2020 season.  The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham 2022 saw the profile of women's cricket continue to grow at pace. This growth is reflected at Bedford with ever-expanding numbers of women and girls joining us. 2023 has seen the women play in the inaugural Bedfordshire indoor women's league, and will see the girls join the inaugural Bedfordshire girl's league! We strive to provide both high quality competitive cricket, and participation cricket to realise the physical, social, cognitive and mental benefits of engaging in sport. We run a girls-only Dynamos programme for those new to the game. This season, for the first time, we will have a girl's only pathway available from age 8 upwards right through to transition to the women's team. We will double the number of female coaches and ensure that our girls can see active, female role models around them at the club. 

Why are we crowdfunding?

The growth in adults and children (particularly women and girls) joining programmes and teams at the club has highlighted the need for upgrades and improvements in both the club estates (changing areas/clubhouse) and the facilities (nets and ground). We simply now don't have enough net space to support the numbers of boys and girls attending training  on a Friday night. We would like to purchase a Flicx 2G pitch which can be used by teams in any area of the ground to provide a high quality training surface. When combined with purchase of portable nets, this can provide another hardball training area. We have older girls chomping at the bit to play hardball cricket! This extra capacity is essential.  

The club are prepared to contribute to the  4,000 required overall to purchase the Flicx pitch and nets. However, the cost of living crisis is affecting both our outgoings and incomings financially. We cannot afford to fund the entire amount in the current financial climate. 

Our energy bills are rapidly increasing and we expect to see further increases with the club in greater use over the summer. The costs of materials required for essential maintenance and repairs at the ground has also increased.

Following the Covid-19 pandemic we made the decision to freeze subscription fees for our members and these have remained frozen since 2020. We recognise that families are under even more pressure now than ever. Therefore we have reduced the cost of our All Stars programme by 33% to try and enable the youngest children to access cricket. Last year All Stars was our biggest group, with over double the amount of children participating compared to older groups. It's the right thing to keep costs as low as possible but it will result in a further loss in income. 

Given the above, we want to reach out to members of the club and community who are in a position to pledge to our crowdfund and ask them to support our children in having great facilities and space to play cricket in.

Ultimately our permanent nets provision will need replacing and extending. This is a huge project which we would like to take the time to plan, consult with members on and develop a fundraising strategy. However, our juniors need pitches and nets to practice in now! A Flicx 2G pitch and portable nets are an ideal and exciting solution.

We anticipate that by improving facilities we will attract more players to the club, with young players especially choosing to play their cricket at Bedford. This will bring greater financial stability and help to secure our future.

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!

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!

How we?ll spend the money raised

We will purchase a Flicx 2G Multi-Age pitch and Hinton 3 portable nets (shown here).

Community impact

Bedford Cricket Club is located in an area with an IMD (Index of Multiple Deprivation) of 2. Bedford is an ethnically diverse town and our club reflects this with White British, Black British and British South Asian players across our teams and programmes.

We reach out each year to our local schools and councillors, highlighting free or low cost activities. As a still under-represented group in the game of cricket, we have minimal membership fees for women and girls and provide loan equipment so they can try the game without any initial expenditure. We partner with local schools without facilities to allow them to use our facilities free-of-charge and have allowed other 'not-for-profit' sports clubs to use the ground to facilitate physical activity for children.

This project successfully funded on 4th April 2023