Barugh Green Sports Club - Essay Example

Funding for sport: A case study 2007 Introduction Barugh Green Sports Club, the multi-activity club based in Yorkshire, is constrained with fund shortages in both its expansion plans and to maintain the current level of activities. There is growing demand for sports facilities in the locality and the club has the possibility of doubling its membership in five years, particularly with the development of the new housing project close to it, if it can improve the facilities. The main facilities, including the three full sized football pitches, two soccer pitches and the two rugby fields are all in bad conditions. Despite having eight tennis courts, one of which has been converted to a basketball court, these cannot be fully used because there are no floodlights. The young tennis players of the locality, who prefer to play after work, therefore, cannot avail of the facilities leaving only older members to the club. The cricket pitch and the bowling alley next to each other means there are distractions and disturbances for players of both. The regular users – the adult and junior football and rugby teams that play on Saturdays and Sundays – have to share time on the fields. The club cannot extend facilities for women’s teams for lack of space. Besides, poor drainage facilities frequently disrupt games in the winter to the extent of canceling games and training sessions. Since the club does not have floodlights, it cannot have indoor training facilities. The club’s current funds, that is still short of five months’ salary bill by GBP 5,000, do not allow it to employ more than two full-time employees. That is why it does not have sufficient coaches despite there being a number of volunteers for the tennis section. The club realizes that the poor condition of the facilities are discouraging both new members to join and existing members to pay more fees that it could utilize to improve training facilities. Besides the lack of proper pavilion, bar, reception and changing rooms has also driven away members. The club is in a Catch 22 situation in the sense that it urgently requires to improve the facilities to draw more membership but does not have the resources. Hence, the only way out for the club to seek external resources. There are various options for the club to raise resources from - government agencies, trusts and charitable funds, voluntary organizations, private companies or the community. However, the club needs to prioritize its projects and approach alternate organizations in a systematic manner. Sport England Yorkshire has been provided with GBP 18,000,000 from the Community Fund of Sport England to develop sport facilities in the area through County partnership programs and increase participation in sports and recreation by 1 percent annually till 2020. The Yorkshire Plan for Sport, 2004, laid out the ground rules to promote sport through Country partnership programs and the Action Plan 2007 has been agreed by the County partners (Sport England). The club should avail of this facility to raise funds for expansion. This report attempts to lay down a game plan for chalking out the various projects that the club requires, prioritize them and plan alternate fund-raising activities for the short-listed projects. Possible funding solutions for projects 1) Improvement and addition of existing playing facilities The club needs to urgently improve the drainage facilities for the football, soccer and rugby fields. Besides, it needs to install floodlights for the tennis courts and build indoor facilities for winter training and a modern equipment storage facility, which now exists in a hut. Also, the club should take on lease the field provided by the farmer and convert to a cricket pitch so that cricket and bowling games can be played without interruptions. The government’s Capital Modernization Fund of GBP 40 million and GBP 20 million from the Spending Review (2002) was targeted at 250-300 projects over the period 2002-2006. This was disbursed through the 16 National bodies for football, lawn tennis, cricket and rugby. The government and the Sport England, that provides funds through the Lottery Fund, are the main sources of capital funds for community organizations of sports. In addition, the club should approach charitable trusts, voluntary organizations and businesses for revenue funds. The Yorkshire Plan for Sport – Action Plan 2007 aims to increase participation in sports and to enable talented players to achieve their full potential through the carefully planned Delivery System that creates community sports networks within each County Sport Partnership. This is directed towards building capacity for sports facilities as well as to improve training facilities. The Investment Strategy for Sport England – Yorkshire is not to fund individual projects but enable partnership projects by involving public agencies, voluntary organizations, businesses, clubs and communities for investment in sports facilities. The club should recognize that since Sport England now has a structured Delivery System to provide investment funds for sports, it should adopt a systematic route rather than approaching alternate agencies randomly. The club should approach the Community Sports Network for assistance in its expansion plans. The Community Sports Network, in turn, is guided by the County Sport Partnership which is overlooked by Sport England. The Yorkshire Plan for Sport targets investment in projects through a leverage of 2:1 that means that the club can raise debt resources through the Delivery System only after it has an equity base. On the whole, the Lottery and Exchequer Fund (2006-09) for Yorkshire has allocated GBP 21 million over the period through pre-allocated and unallocated funding. Besides, Sport England aims to utilize GBP 42 million through partnership funds in Yorkshire. Sport England Yorkshire has allocated GBP 2.4 million for projects for which applicants approach it directly, albeit with the support of the Community Sport Network or the County Sport Partnership. Besides Sport England Yorkshire has another fund of GBP 15.6 million for strategic projects identified by either the County Sport Partnership or the Community Sport Networks. Barugh Green Sport Club can approach the Community Sport Network for allocation of funds from either of these funds. However, the club needs to find a matching grant before applying for the Sport England Yorkshire Fund. One of the major nationwide sports fund is available through the Sport England Lottery Fund, which provides grants for capital projects that benefit the community (Federation of Yorkshire Sport, 2005). Since its launch in 1994, National Lottery has awarded GBP 1.2 billion for capital projects. To begin with, however, Barugh Green should raise resources through equity partnerships with influential community and voluntary organizations. It may approach organizations like South Yorkshire Sport and County Sports Partnership (sportengland). In addition, the club should approach individual sport boards at the national level, like the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the Football Foundation of England and others. 2) Renovation of the pavilion including changing rooms, bar, reception and official room For the renovation projects, the club should garner small grants and business sponsorships. In 2006, the Lottery’s Award for All Programmes awarded 103 grants in South Yorkshire totaling GBP 493,111. The Program awards small funds ranging from GBP 300 to GBP 10,000 for voluntary organizations and community groups (Award for All). Barugh Green can apply for an Awards for All grant in 2007 for the renovation of the pavilion. The club can also apply to the National Lottery for the revenue projects of improving facilities. It can also applied to the local charities for cash funds for improving the changing rooms, bars, reception and the official room. 3) Increase the salary fund so that more coaches can be hired It should incorporate important charitable trusts like the South Yorkshire Community Foundation that provide grants up to GBP 2,000 through the Community Champions Fund for hiring special short-term coaches. The club may also approach bodies like the England and Wales Cricket Club and the Football Foundation for assistance in hiring professional coaches. 4) Hold events The club should approach sports bodies like the Football Foundation and England and Wales Cricket Board for assistance in holding events that could increase the popularity of the club and hence get more membership. Along with this, it should also get local businesses and the community to hold events like matches, for which Sport England has a revenue fund. The viable project The first priority for the club is to improve the existing facilities, that is, build drainage facilities for the fields, install floodlights and build indoor training facilities as well as to acquire additional facilities like a separate pitch for cricket. Sport England has identified multi-sport hubs as the most viable formats to promote sports in the country. Since Barugh is a multi-sport facility providing all the popular English sports facilities like those of football, soccer, rugby, tennis, cricket, bowling and basketball, it is most likely to receive a favorable response from the Sport England and get a capital award from the Lottery Fund to improve and add facilities. Sport England has awarded a three-year funding of GBP 10.7 million in the Lottery Fund for promoting community cricket in England and Wales. Barugh should take advantage of this and approach the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for a capital fund needed to acquire land for the cricket pitch. The ECB has recently funded high profile projects like the National Cricket Center in Loughborough and the Hampshire County Cricket Club’s Rose Bowl Stadium. At the same time, it has also provided grants to individual clubs and communities for promoting cricketing facilities (ECB News). Sport England has also earmarked GBP 9.4 million funds for promoting tennis, one of the country’s 10 priority sports, through the Club Development Programme (CDP). This source of funding has been availed by Parklangay Club in Beckenham to increase coaching facilities and by Boston Lawn Tennis Club to garner GBP 460,000 to improve the indoor center. Barugh Green desperately needs to have an indoor center for which it can approach Sport England’s CDP (Sport England, Tennis). Although the club has three full sized football fields and two mini soccer pitches, the facilities are still short for meeting the demand in the area. This has resulted in the clubs sharing space. Besides, the club needs to add facilities for a women’s football club. The Football Association and Sport England have a GBP 9.4 million Community Club Development funding package for promoting junior football clubs and communities. Newark Town Football Club availed of this fund to change the pavilion and improve grass pitches at Devon Park (sport England, Newark). Non-viable It would be difficult for the club to get revenue funding for recruiting coaches or funds for improving the pavilion unless it gets a capital fund to get additional facilities. Hence these projects should come lower in the priority list of the club. Also, businesses would be interested in sponsoring events or to provide small grants to build additional changing rooms or equipment storage facilities only when it sees the infrastructure and increased membership that would provide them some business interests. However, the club can still approach local charitable trusts and voluntary organizations for small funds to tide over its short term cash crunch. The club can hold community events local matches in association with voluntary organizations like those for disabled people, ethnic communities, etc. to raise funds. The club should gear up its relationships with local schools that could use its facilities more often. Process of funding the viable project Since we have identified the Community Investment Fund (CIF) of Sport England as the principal source of fund for Barugh Green, the next step is to plan the process of fund raising. The application to CIF is available on the website of Sport England. The form should be supported by the Community Sport Network or the County Sport Partnership. The application should make a strong case as to be eligible for the funding. The club authorities should fill up the form with all the details about the club’s strengths and importance in the community. Capital costs for acquiring a new cricket pitch or for an additional football field is more likely to be considered by the CIF than smaller projects of pavilion renovation or installation of floodlights. The funds will be made available through the National Lottery Fund hence this organization will look carefully through the entire project costs and plans. Details of the costs and timeline of the project should be clearly described in the application to avoid rejection. The club should simultaneously raise matching funds from the National Sport Bodies like the England and Cricket Board, Football Association, Rugby Association and Lawn Tennis Association. There should be equity participation from community organizations and businesses that could also play a participatory role in the management of the club. It could also raise funds individuals in the locality who are interested in sports. For example, the farmer who is willing to donate land to the club may also donate small amounts for the development of facilities like the installation of floodlights or building more equipment storage. Barugh Green requires a strong financial management team to organize the capital and revenue funds efficiently to ensure that it does not land up with cash crunch to pay salaries. Works Cited Sport England, http://www.sportengland.org/text/yorkshire_index/yorkshire_get_funding.htm Federation of Yorkshire Sport, Show me the Money, 2005, http://www.yorkshiresport.org.uk/showmethemoney.pdf Award for All, August 8, 2006 www.awardsforall.org.uk/england/york_humber/pr_barnsley_cricket.doc Sport England, www.sportengland.org England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), Sport England Funds Back ECB, http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/10-7m-funding-boost-from-sport-england,7254,EN.html Sport England, Tennis, http://www.sportengland.org/tennis.pdf Sport England, Newark, New Football Facilities at Newark, http://www.sportengland.org/text/eastmidlands_index/eastmidlands_news_media/iyr_east_midlands-newark.htm Read More