Nottinghamshire Recreational Cricket

Nick Shaw, Secretary of Wymeswold Cricket Club, takes up the story….

For us, a few ‘Dads and Lads’ knocking balls around on a Friday night quickly escalated as more and more children, both boys and girls, turned up at our ground to join in. Soon we had between fifty and sixty youngsters coming along to play and it became obvious that we, as a cricket club, needed to get our act together and formalise our fledging ‘junior section’.

Advice was sought from Keith Tongue at Trent Bridge and, over a pint or two, he guided us through the steps we needed to take in terms of CRB (now DBS) checking, safeguarding, welfare matters and, of course, junior kit.

Thus we formalised our new junior section and soon had teams competing in local youth leagues and U13 and U15 levels.

We had been aware for a few years that our existing pavilion was inadequate with two small, cramped dressing rooms each with one toilet and one shower. There were no facilities for officials, girls or those less-abled. Other areas fell foul of welfare guidelines too, such as clear windows in the dressing rooms and dressing room doors which opened straight into public areas.

Therefore we knew we had an established need to upgrade, but then there was the small matter of finding the money to do it.

Meanwhile the memorable 2012 Olympics came and went, but true to their word the funding for legacy projects became available through Sport England’s “Inspired Facilities” fund. Some rudimentary conversations took place with people ‘in the know’ and it quickly became apparent that it would be a £70k to £80k project due to the need to design all the changing rooms and facilities to be totally compliant with Sport England, ECB and FA welfare guidelines.

Therefore we knew it would be a bigger project which would involve an extension as well as a refurbishment and all that entails, such as planning permission and new ground works.

First stop was Sport England’s ‘Inspired Facilities’ Fund where we applied for the maximum £50k. We were initially unsuccessful, but Sport England were fantastic in offering feedback advice on how we could tweak a few details and re-submit the bid. This we did and in April 2014 we were awarded the full amount.

In the meantime we picked up some smaller grants, such as £3000 from the Rempstone Steam and Country Show and £1000 from the Wymeswold Running Club.

However we were still around £20k short, so in July 2014 we applied to Biffa Award’s Main Grants Scheme for projects up to £50k.

Conclusions

It’s taken several years to get to this point and we are able to offer some advice to other clubs who may be thinking about going down a similar path:

• Funding applications take a lot of your time! For obvious reasons they don’t just throw money at you. The application process is very time-consuming but, perhaps, for the right reasons as they have to ensure that money is being directed to properly-constituted bodies with security of tenure.
• Try to make your project multi-purpose. It’s getting more difficult so get funding for cricket clubs on their own. If the facility can be used for multi-sports and, even better, for non-sporting community uses too then that will improve your chances.
• Identify the need and the benefit All funding sources will ask for evidence of the established need and the beneficial outcomes from the project
• Get letters of support - evidence of the credibility of your organisation and the proven need will be needed from the sport’s governing body.

The team at Trent Bridge will be able to offer support and advice

There are many man hours to put in and a few obstacles to over come, but in our case we have an £80k project for which we’ve received £79k of funding – so the rewards are there!