Serving the Community

Who are we?

Get Set 4 Tennis are an award-winning fully inclusive community tennis club providing free or affordable tennis to over 1000 children and adults every week. We have two venues; Denham Way Recreation Ground, Maple Cross and Manor House Grounds, Abbots Langley. We run a comprehensive range of well-supported outreach programmes with a large focus on disability tennis, teaching in 16 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Schools across Hillingdon, Harrow, Ealing, Three Rivers and Watford, as well as programmes in areas of deprivation. We receive outstanding feedback for these programmes (see our website).

As a result of this work, we were named Middlesex LTA Tennis 4 All Award Winners for our work in inclusion. Our 6th award in 4 years. 

Community Impact

For the past two years, GS4 have run crowdfunding pages which have been extremely well received by the local community and raised lots of vital funds to support our work. 

Funds from last year allowed us to keep prices low and we were able to fully fund other areas of the community we felt most in need of support and physical exercise. 

We have continued to work with outreach projects in the local community with SEND schools, areas of deprivation and Action for Children to name a few. We were donated a van to transport our inclusive equipment around in from the West Herts Charitable Trust and selected to be recipients for the Bundles of Joy project.

Over the last 3 years GS4 have had the support of Three Rivers District council and have worked together to develop a brand new fully inclusive venue. This has included 3 newly situated tennis courts all floodlit and a community pavilion. This is a massive improvement on the current facilities for the residents of Maple Cross and we cannot wait to start using them.

We are delighted to be able to offer a range of activities now both on and off court to ensure the whole community is provided for. These will be aimed at our most vulnerable members of the community with things like warm safe space time, pop up food bank once a week and social prescribing. Groups like this will run alongside SEND specific activities both on and off the court as well as our usual tennis offering. 

This was our quote last year and it remains the same to this day….

“Our aim is anyone can have a go and make new friends regardless of their ability/disability and financial circumstances. Sport should have no barriers.

All equipment provided and EVERYONE is welcome!”

Why are we crowdfunding?

A brand new facility does not come without cost. For the first time ever GS4 will be responsible for day to day maintenance costs, electricity and water bills to name just a few outgoings.

In order for us to keep lessons, activities, camps, everything we do, low cost, fundraising projects like this are vital. Without the support from the local community it will be incredibly hard to achieve everything we would like to for the local community. 

From feedback, we know how incredibly important it is to our families and the local community that this facility is able to offer a year round package both on and off the tennis court. Many of the areas of the community we work with are isolated and/or vulnerable and this facility will enable us to bring people together. 

How we’ll spend the money raised

Projected costs for the running of the facility are approximately £12,000 per year (base amount) Ouch right? 

This doesn't take into account our highly subsidised pay-as-you-go lessons. Most local clubs charge upfront membership fee and then over £10 per hour for lessons. We are between £5-£7 with absolutely no up front fee, making us unique in our area. Therefore any additional funds over this £12,000 will go towards these subsidised lessons. In any event, absolutely all money raised will go towards supporting these programmes to ensure we continue making tennis accessible to those most in need in our community.

We know that the cost of living crisis sees many local families struggling financially. Sadly we know sport is the first thing to be stopped when money is tight but often has the greatest detrimental impact on both physical and mental health. This is why we feel that it's so important now to continue and expand our offering to the local community why we hope you will consider supporting us, thank you.

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. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – 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!