Club rescued from brink of closure

Club News: Greenhead Park

A good news story to open the Veterans League season. Huddersfield Veterans League club Greenhead Park was first formed in 1927 and was a founder member of the League in 1970 but even before the start of this season was on the verge of folding.

A recruitment campaign mainly conducted online with an extensive Facebook campaign was a great success attracting 7 new members. This immediately secured the future of the Veterans 10-Man League team and even extended to enable the club to re-enter the 6-Man League after a gap of 3 years. The campaign was actually too successful as the real lure proved to be the offer of free first-year membership to new members.

At the same time, the club was finding out that they didn't qualify for any of the grants being made available to other clubs to counter the pandemic impact on our sport. The fact that they didn't own their own green or club disqualified them from applying for any of the government grants readily available to all other clubs.

Facing a future of thriving membership but an unaffordable new-member scheme things didn't look good until the club became aware of the One-Community Fund for Kirklees. This Fund encourages local businesses and individuals to donate cash to their scheme and then they distribute monies to various deserving voluntary bodies as they see fit. The bid for £300 to tide the club over the 2022 season was submitted and painlessly approved in time for the club to secure its future.

The funding was required to pay 2022 league fees, insurance cover and other annual costs where the club didn't have the reserves to cover such expenditure. There is no doubt that without the aid from this fund that the club would have folded and the bowlers would have been without a base or bowling action this year. The club's Management Team wish to pass on their heartfelt thanks for the help that this fund has provided in securing the immediate future of the club and for the help they received in complying with their qualifying requirements.

As with all such bids it does require some effort on behalf of the recipient to convince the benefactor that they are a genuine bidder with a good cause. Greenhead Park had to provide a copy of their club constitution which they were then advised would need updating to cover certain missing areas. One being what would happen to the club and its assets if it were ever to be dissolved. Obviously they are not going to give money to an organisation that would only act as a cash cow for its members. A dissolution clause had to be inserted into the document and copies of recent bank accounts had to be provided.

The same information also enabled the club to get some additional funding from the Huddersfield Common Good Trust and bids have also been lodged with Persimmon Homes and with the Asda Foundation. The Asda Foundation bid was to provide finance to keep the club going but this was rejected although one for funding to pay for new polo shirts for members is still ongoing. They are looking for the Asda Foundation to be advertised on any clothing provided which is not regarded as a problem. Greenhead Park found this process to be quite prolonged but relatively straightforward.

So financial help is available locally but it does require some effort on behalf of the bidder as no reputable organisation is going to hand over cash to an organisation that they don't believe is fit for purpose.

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