Support TVC Women for the 2023/24 Season!

The Thames Valley Cavaliers Crowdfunder! Why do we need it?

We're truly committed to creating opportunity for Women to play the sport they love with as little restraint as possible. We are short of sponsors, and completely self-funded meaning our players pay club fees (£400 per player) to cover club expenses (listed below) as well as necessary costs around player licensing (from £55-£525 per player depending on residency status), clearance fees (250 Swiss Francs per player, equivalent to £225 - For players who last played abroad), amongst other regular expenses such as travel to training and games. The club expenses include things such as court hire, coach, referees & officials per game, transportation to away games, etc - which have been forecasted to total around £15,000 over the entire season for the club to cover.

We are actively seeking sponsorship and you can find our sponsorship information pack here. We have also created this Crowdfunder with the hopes that our friends, families, colleagues, supporters, and others will support the growth and sustainability of our Women's programme here at Thames Valley Cavaliers.

Who are we?

Thames Valley Cavaliers (TVC) Women's Basketball squad are a self-funded squad, birthed in 2018. Initially, TVC started as one team of 12 women, competing at National level across the U.K. Year after year, we noticed a steady increase of interest to participate in basketball - whether socially, recreationally or at intermediate and elite levels. With the evident demand, we have rapidly grown to engaging over 100 women and girls or all levels. We have also expanded our Women's side of the club by entering three teams of different levels into competitive leagues, providing plenty of opportunity to meet our demand, registering around 40-50 women and girls to play and represent our club across three teams. 

Our recent accomplishments

Our Women’s success speaks for itself and is surely something to be celebrated. 

• Completed our inaugural season at the top of the South Conference of Division Two, earning promotion to compete the top Women’s Division in the Women’s National Basketball league (WNBL) from 2019-20.
• Finished 2021/22 season in 3rd place, completing both cup and playoff runs as semi-finalists.
• ONE of FOUR Division One teams invited to play in the professional trophy competition, the WBBL Trophy, against the best players in this country in the highest league. We faced off against the Scottish WBBL team, Caledonia Gladiators, in the WBBL Trophy on Saturday 7th January 2023.In defeat, we proved ourselves to be arguably the most competitive Division One team appearing in the WBBL Trophy, especially up against a top-4 team in Caledonia.
• WNBL National Cup Champions 2023! Our ladies struck GOLD, appearing at one of the biggest occasions of the year within our League – The National Cup Finals – on the 22nd of January, and defeated front-runners, Reading Rockets in the Finals.
• Finished the regular season with a 18-4 record, in 2nd place.

We’ve done so much in so little time but could do so much more - and quicker - with your support.

Community Impact

We seek to create a pathway for young aspiring female athletes to develop their game and play at an elite level with a local community-based team. We also aim to create a safe space for ladies and young girls, seeking opportunities to stay fit and healthy and find a new recreational hobby with like-minded people. 

Last season, we introduced a local league team for this purpose to provide a safe, and competitive learning space for young and developing elite athletes and for others who want to continue competing at a competitive level just for the love of the game. Since then, the demand has shot up even more and we have now entered a third team competing Nationally in Division Two, to provide a more competitive team that complimented the level of talent we have been developing and have attracted. To make this happen, we are spreading our resources thin across all of our teams with heavy voluntary hours, and minimal resources. We plan to use the funds to ensure a sustainable, solid, affordable programme can be built.

Your decision to sponsor a women’s basketball meets an ever-increasing audience for women’s sporting events & basketball overall. Sponsoring women's sport can make good business sense for key brands – whether at a premier level or supporting grassroots community sports activity - In this scenario, you would be supporting both. By supporting early talent, companies help increase the number of girls and women participating in sport within our communities - and this has huge benefits in increasing confidence, teamwork, and physical & mental health, and the potential to create future star players.

Why are we crowdfunding?

Our entire Women‘s programme is the only self-funded team within our organisation. As a result, they are totally dependent on every single athlete’s commitment to training, competing, and paying to support us. Our Women’s commitment to our programme goes above and beyond, with members working full-time responsibilities as employees, students, and/or parents – Their dedication to train, compete and succeed is second to none. In many cases – especially in today’s economy - there are talented hopefuls who simply cannot afford the costs of playing while working and/or studying.

We have a very diverse group of up to 50 ladies and girls competing within our programme, splitting costs such as court hire for training and fixtures, and game day costs such as officials (referees, table officials, statisticians etc.) – Due to the unaffordability of the season per player, we’ve had to strip out other important, but variable costs such as transport (petrol to games per car as it is cheaper than hiring a minibus – We now split each round trip per car) kit (our current kit is ill-fitted and outdated) and coaching (one of our players is our volunteer Player-Coach [whilst paying fees!!]) as we cannot afford the cost of a coach. With these mitigations in place, this works out to around £400 per player. On top of this, players still require licensing (£55 for UK National, £160 for Settled/Pre-Settled/ILR Status Player & £525 for a Non-British player with visa sponsorship), and we have over 10 players requiring FIBA clearance (~£225) as they previously played outside of the U.K.

This means what we have some players set to pay a grand total of £1150 (£400+£525+£225) for a Non-British player on a visa who last played abroad) - and it is critical we leverage this Crowdfunder to support our players most impacted.

How we’ll spend the money raised

We'll use all funds raised to:

• Subsidise our women's and girl’s fees
• create more training and playing opportunities
• cover additional costs such as travel to games, coaching etc.
• Get a new home & away kit

Join the huddle! 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 and our sponsorship information pack on your social media pages and with your friends/local businesses 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!

Finally… Sponsor us!!

As mentioned above, we are actively seeking sponsorship with marketing packages available (including bespoke packages to fit your business). We have a large (and continuously growing) reach - our fans, schools, universities & colleges, and our website & social platforms - this enables us to connect with 30,000+ people through various touchpoints. You will find more information here.