Money for small clubs

[Roasty]

If your club has a gross income of less than £20,000, including subs, match fees and bar takings, you are almost certainly eligible to receive up to £5,000 of Government money to spend on insurance, equipment, coaching etc. The application process is quick and easy, you get an answer within a couple of weeks and the money a couple of weeks after that. The next deadline for appliations is 10 December.

The scheme is called Grassroots Grants, and details can be found here.

http://www.essexcommunityfoundation.org.uk/grassroots/gr_grants.html

If your club is within the Epping Forest or Harlow Districts, please contact Richard Crone at Voluntary Action Epping Forest on rcrone@vaef.org.uk or 01992 564515 who will help you through the application process. Other clubs should contact their local Council for Voluntary Service who can assist.

All the Best

Roasty
Theydon Bois CC

[andrewshields]

We've been members of Voluntary Action Epping Forest for a number of years and found their services invaluable; I'd recommend all clubs to explore membership of their local CVS.

I'm also amazed why more clubs haven't registered as a Community Amateur Sports Club. This gives access to gift aid on certain monies paid to the club, with other categories of income redefined as donations/gifts 'to cover costs' rather than fees. It's a bit of extra work for the treasurer and you need to bring all your members along with you, but in our first year we have recouped almost £2,000. It works particularly well for clubs with junior coaching programmes. I'm happy to point any club in the right direction, or visit our website homepage and click through the links to see how it works.

Andrew
SOUTH LOUGHTON CC

[andrewshields]

We applied for £5,000 over two years to develop our disability cricket programme in conjunction with the charity Cricket 4 Change and got the full amount. As ever, the support of our CDO at Essex, Graham Jelley, was invaluable.