TCC-Creating Girls & Ladies Cricket Opportunities

Aim

We aim to create a female section, adding additional sessions, resources and getting volunteers suitably qualified to cater for everyone.

ABOUT OUR CLUB

Templepatrick Cricket Club (est. 1969) is a thriving community club with excellent practice and playing facilities based at The Cloughan in Ballyclare, Co Antrim. 

We play in the NCU Leagues in Northern Ireland and have a reputation for providing the very best coaching and facilities for our members. With four competitive senior men's teams and one of the biggest and best youth systems in the country, there is an opportunity for those of all abilities at TCC! 

We currently have 240 members of all ages and abilities, from 4 years old upwards.

We are a Clubmark accredited (best practice) club and in 2018, we were runner up for the Cricket Ireland 'All Ireland Cricket Club of the Year'.

OUR YOUTH SYSTEM

We are very proud of our youth system and are committed to offering opportunities to get children involved in our sport. We wish to cater for boys and girls from aged 4 upwards and have multiple boys teams at U9, U11, U13, U15 and U17 level who compete in league and cup competitions, as well as friendlies. We pride ourselves on ensuring that all our members get an opportunity to practise, play, contribute and most importantly, have fun enjoying sport!

FIGHTING BACK AFTER COVID AFFECTED TCC IN THE COMMUNITY

Without a doubt COVID affected what TCC had been able to offer in our community but we have started to put really solid foundation structures in place to really build a high quality community club.  

• We lost out on our interaction with local schools. We were not able to - 
  • support schools with coaching  programmes. ( during and after school ).
  • host primary and post primary  schools at our ground.
  • implement KWIK cricket competitions.
• We were not able to implement our girls and ladies cricket programmes. 
• We had to greatly strip back and reduce the cricket opportunities  that we wished to offer at our club - 
  • No youth or senior players practised indoors ( winter training ) for almost 2 years.
  • Easter camps were cancelled.
  • Summer camps were greatly affected and many opportunities reduced.
  • In season practices for seniors and youth were greatly affected and many opportunities reduced.
• Fundraising and social interactions were reduced - As well as all of these cricket opportunities being reduced, we were also very restricted on the social activity of the club for 2 years and hence fundraising opportunities were greatly affected. These events are essential to finance the cricket operation side of the club and enhance what opportunities we can then in turn provide in our community.

In 2022 we initiated a Crowdfunding campaign to start the recovery from Covid and to make Templepatrick Cricket Club a Total Cricket Community by Re-activating after all the above set backs to come back bigger, better and stronger after Covid by providing quality cricket and sporting opportunities to as much of the community as possible.

This 2022 Crowdfunding campaign was very successful and so were the programs we put in place from it. We now want to add further to our Club and what it offers the community.

THE AIMS OF THIS NEW 2023 PROJECT 

This 2023 Crowdfunding campaign is aiming to create cricket opportunities for girls and ladies in our community.  We feel that while the male side of our club is vibrant we now need to look at  creating sport opportunities for female inclusion and participation.

We wish to further enhance our provision of providing quality cricket and sporting opportunities to as many girls and ladies in the community as possible.

The project will start opportunities for girls and ladies to get involved with cricket offering opportunities for initial engagement, for young primary school girls upwards to adult ladies to all get involved with cricket, enjoy cricket, engage with our club, progress their cricket and stay involved with cricket at whatever level that may be.

Your financial support to this Crowdfunder project will help this project provide - 

• Additional support from our coaches to engage with girls in local primary and post primary schools outside of school hours.
• Engaging with other adult ladies sports teams to offer a summer sport to increase their sporting opportunities. Eg Winter ladies hockey teams engaging in cricket during the summer.
• Indoor hall hire to provide sessions before the cricket season starts.
• For coaching costs to cater for the variety of playing levels that individuals will have across all ages and ability. 
• Purchasing the required balls and equipment to make sure we can deliver all our programs to the required standard.
• Coach education for some of our own members and parents to increase our volunteering capacity and knowledge.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

We want to create a female section to our club. We believe in the importance of sport in our community and the physical, social and mental well-being that it brings and are keen to engage with as many people as possible  to make sure as many people as possible benefit from community sport, building friendships along the way.  We have some girls aged 4-11 involved in our mixed U11 boy / girl sessions but we want to attract more young girls, teenage girls and ladies into cricket and also to run sessions which are just for girls and ladies. We feel this will boost their confidence and involvement and they will be more likely to stay engaged with us and sport ( cricket ) for a longer time. 

WE CAN DOUBLE YOUR DONATION

We are delighted to say that if through this Crowdfunder appeal we reach £5,000 of donations from individuals, businesses and organisations then SPORT NI will match that £5,000 taking us to our overall project target of £10,000 meaning that we can implement all the project aims listed above. We are utilising the following Sport NI funding opportunity  Supporting Sport To Build Back Better – Project Re:Boot

OUR VISION

To be a TOTAL CRICKET COMMUNITY providing a quality environment that inspires EVERYONE to play, improve and enjoy their cricket.  

Have an excellent environment in terms of our coaching, facilities and culture.

Encourage everyone to portray inclusion and diversity and encourage everyone to be the best person they can be.

OUR MISSION

To develop a diverse cricket family, producing quality players and teams and good people through great coaching, facilities, teamwork, friendship and culture.

Family shows our membership as being close - strengthening the family unit and our community.  Producing quality people, not only in cricket terms but rounded individuals and teams - shown by people working together with different strengths to achieve better outcomes together.

STAY IN TOUCH

Follow us on or social media outlets

Website     www.templepatrickcc.co.uk

Facebook    @templepatrickcc

Twitter         @tpatrickcc            

Instagram     @templepatrickcc

This project successfully funded on 28th June 2023