Solihull Blossomfield Club Fundraiser

Aim: To facilitate the inclusion of wheelchair tennis into our sport offering - Disabled toilet, improved wheelchair access etc

Who are we?

Solihull Blossomfield Club is a multi-sport venue in the heart of Solihull, with a deep history in the Community. It was originally set up by a group of Air Raid Wardens after the Second World War. At "The Bloss", you can play Tennis, Hockey, Cricket, Bowls, Petanque, Chess and take part in Amateur Dramatics. We also have a large social community and a very welcoming bar. We have a brilliantly diverse membership of around 1,000 members, each one with their own story.

Why are we crowdfunding?

Solihull Blossomfield Club has worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to ensure the club remains viable and was ready to welcome back our members as soon as allowed. However, funding streams have changed drastically since the pandemic. We need your help...

Covid has cost us thousands over the last few years, with loss in membership income, function room hire and the reduction in bar revenue. 

What is it?

It is time for the whole of Bloss to unite as a community and work together to raise money for the betterment of the Club. 

We will be soon launching a Crowdfunder with the hope of gaining some Extra Funding from Sports England through the Active Together scheme: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/funds/active-together

Blossomfield is unique and special in ways that is not replicated in most other Clubs. We are a community that has been here for years and will be here for years to come. Over the years, many of us have all put time and effort into making the most from the excellent Community we have. This will be a wonderful way for us to double benefit from such efforts.

It also ‘frees up’ other future financial commitments enabling us to progress more initiatives for the benefit of all members.

As a further incentive to help members help this project, unlike many clubs, Bloss is not increasing membership from pre-Covid levels, just removing the discount that was applied to the previous year. Hopefully, this will be received well by all members and will be reflected in the support given to this major project. We want Bloss to be a community where anyone can join, keeping membership fees as low as possible helps us do this!

How our project will be United by Birmingham 2022

As the Commonwealth Games come to Birmingham in 2022, it is really important that as a Club we can offer the sports and activities that people of all ages will be inspired and keen to get involved in by this brilliant event! Solihull Blossomfield Club is very much a community driven enterprise. We have recently launched an Outreach Program to send volunteers to non-hockey-playing schools, increased our Girl’s junior cricket coaching by 300% and began to offer wheelchair tennis. We want to ensure that anyone can access sport at our Club and often help other communities hosting their sport at our club.

Andy Wyles, Warwickshire Cricket: “The inclusion programme at the Warwickshire Cricket Board falls under my remit and Blossomfield have been exceptionally supportive of our disability squad, made their facilities available to the squad and been very welcoming.”

How does Crowdfunding work?

We have a set an initial target of £22,000, which will enable us to complete the urgent and important works that we have detailed below.

We will be running our crowdfunding campaign for 8 weeks and will be asking Sport England to match part of what we raise ourselves, with a £10,000 pledge.  So, if we can achieve £12,000 ourselves from at least 100 unique supporters, Sport England will pledge £10,000!  We will need to reach our initial target to ‘lock in’ and secure Sport England’s pledge, so it is vital that we succeed.  If we do not hit our £12,000 target in the 8-week timescale, we will lose the pledge from Sport England, so it is up to us all to help in whatever way we can to raise this money! 

If we reach our target before the end of the campaign, then anything over and above will all go directly to the Club as a whole and will enable us to further improve our Club!

Our Projects:

• Main Aim - Inclusion of a disabled toilet in the Club House and increased accessibility for disabled members. This will allow us to include wheelchair tennis in our sport offering. Wheelchair tennis is a great way for less-abled members to improve their physical and mental health. As you will have heard from Alan Wigley in the video above, there is no other facility for this in the area. It has always been the main aim for Bloss to offer opportunities to play sport for everyone, at the moment this is seriously lacking for the less-abled. The main aim for this Crowdfunding initiative will be to build a new disabled toilet as part of the foyer/ladies' toilet and to improve the access for the less-abled to get into the club and onto the courts. Approximate costing - £8,000

• Complete revamp of the male toilets in the foyer. This is something that has not been done in years and is desperately needed. Firstly, this is to improve the experience for all members. Secondly, this will attract more members and functions to the club to ensure use of the Whittaker Room and the future ability of the Club to increase income opportunities from functions and, ultimately, survive. Approximate Costing - £7,000

• Renovation of the Ladies' Bowls Toilet. A room desperate for some work! It is important for when we host Bowls tournaments that we have a sensible area for players to use and this renovation will allow this. Approximate Costing - £4,000

• Upgrade of Ladies' Hockey Changing Room/Cricket Umpires Changing Room. This will involve re-doing the showers to add cubicles, updating the thermostat on the boiler and renovating the toilet. Approximate Costing - £3,000 (£2,000 is the stretch target on this Crowdfunder)

How can you help?

Well the idea behind this crowdfunder is to get all the sections and members to contribute to this project in a fun and proactive way! Bloss is our club and it is up to us to look after it.

• Firstly, and by far the easiest, just donate! 

Using this page, you can donate as little or as much as you can. Even if you can only donate a few pounds, this will really help us hit our target!

• Secondly, we are looking for added incentives...

We need to offer some rewards on our crowdfunding page to attract those big bucks! We are asking for members who may be able to offer a reward (prize) to be drawn from those who donate to contact us (Chris Bevins email below). These rewards could be small or large, just know that anything you donate, whether time or goods, will be great for the Club. Please see the righthand side of this crowdfunding page for examples:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-plympton-community-tennis-courts

• Thirdly, we are looking for people to run a few events, no matter how big or small, to raise some money. Think bake sales, quizzes, or raffles!

Chris Bevins will be leading this project with the assistance of many others so please do speak to him if you have any questions, ideas, or any reward offerings!

Email - [email protected]

Mobile - 07864 960543