Construction work is now underway on a project to upgrade and extend Wymeswold’s ageing cricket pavilion. The project is expected to take around eight weeks, yet the seeds behind the need for the refurbishment were sown almost ten years ago.
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:
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!