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Update on fundraising for the new cricket pavilion
As the new cricket season shivers into being and youngsters look once more at the sad
reality that is our current pavilion the Cricket Club can’t but long for the day the new
pavilion is ready. And with huge amounts of work now completed behind the scenes on
developing training programmes, safeguarding policies and a host of other things that are
needed for the young people Mission EmployAble will train and employ in the café there,
everyone at Mission EmployAble is similarly desperate for the Pavilion to spring into
being.
But first we need the money! Let us share with everyone in Chorleywood the great news
of our fund-raising success to date. We are quite certain we are now in a position to start
building very soon.
Fund raising has continued throughout 2020/21 despite all the COVID restrictions and has
been very successful. We have raised over 80% of our target funds to date, including
£100,000 pledged by Sport England. We have nearly a million pounds in the bank and
pledges from reputable grant making charities for another £730 thousand including the
Sport England commitment. This is enough to cover the building costs and, thanks to the
offer of a generous interest free loan to be available if required, we are now ready to start
the building of the pavilion with confidence. But we still have to raise funds to pay back
that interest free loan, to pay for a pilot project for Mission Employable and to pay for the
start up costs of the café. So during the remainder of this year we will continue to fund-
raise.
To allow everyone involved to sleep well at night, a large UK based charity has pledged to
underwrite the entire cost of the build, thus guaranteeing that nothing we can think of
will stop money being available to get the pavilion completed.
The Parish Council has asked us for certain guarantees and assurances which we are
talking to them about. As soon as these discussions are completed, we will be in a position
to start the building and we are all excited about the prospect.
We would like to thank both the local Chorleywood community and the wider community
for the support for this project to date. We have had many kind words of support given to
us and people have responded incredibly generously to all our fund-raising events.
We now look forward to a new cricket pavilion and a new community café that will equip
and train young learning-disabled adults for employment in the local area and provide a
wonderful facility for cricket, refreshments and facilities on the Common.
More fund-raising events are planned for the remainder of 2021 which will be advertised
locally soon, including an additional day on the 3rd May to see the Bluebells as local
support resulted in the 2nd May being sold out!
Thank you again for your continuing and much appreciated support,
Steve Dunning
Chair, Chorleywood Cricket Club
Katharine Weston
Chair, Mission EmployAble
Posted by Steve Dunning on 24th Apr 21
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