We are delighted to announce that Dulwich Cricket Club has secured the Griffin Sports Ground in Dulwich Village as the new home ground for our Women and Girls, which will allow us to significantly enhance our female cricket programmes and to grow sustainably and inclusively as a club.
The Griffin will be the first top-quality cricket ground in the UK to give priority to women’s and girls’ teams. We will also use the Griffin to bring cricket to local state schools and socially and ethnically diverse communities who have too often been excluded from the enjoyment and opportunities that our wonderful sport provides.
Over the next few years, we will be redeveloping the Griffin’s facilities to be the best in the area, with the support of the England & Wales Cricket Board and the Surrey Cricket Foundation. We have ambitious plans to relay the square and to install new nets, among other improvements.
As well as helping us to fulfil our ambition of offering women and girls the same cricketing opportunities that we have always given to men and boys, the project will benefit Dulwich cricketers of all genders by easing pressure on nets and pitches, which as you know has long been our biggest headache as a club.
While women and girls will have the first use of the facilities, we expect our men and boys to have plenty of great opportunities to play and train at the Griffin as well. We’ll be able to continue to grow our expanding girls’ section, and to shorten waiting lists for the boys.
How you can help
In order to make the most of the opportunities that the Griffin provides, we need to raise an initial £20,000 in order to capitalise the new charity that will run the ground and take on the lease, to contribute to the costs of renovations, and to make cricket more inclusive through affordable pitch and facility hire.
We know that many of you at DCC have already made very generous donations to the Griffin project, some of four figure sums, following a more limited appeal at an earlier stage, and we have all made significant personal donations ourselves.
The club is extremely grateful for this support, without which we would have been unable to take advantage of this amazing opportunity.
We hope that many of you who are learning of this project for the first time, and who have not yet donated, will be willing to support us now. It is through the generosity of our club community that we will be able to ensure that the Griffin brings the greatest possible benefits to our membership and to our sport.
You can donate very easily online here -- https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/a-cricket-ground-that-puts-women-girls-first.
If you can’t donate – and we appreciate that this is a difficult time for many families – we’d be very grateful if you could share our fundraising appeal on social media, and with anybody who you think might be keen to support us.
Parents, we would also be delighted if you could get your children involved in the fundraising. They will be the biggest beneficiaries of the Griffin, and it’s a great opportunity for sponsored activities in support of a great cause. We have attached details of the charity that will run the Griffin, including its registration number and bank details, at the end of this email to support individual sponsorship and fundraising efforts.
Our partnership with Lambeth Tigers
The Griffin is to be run by the London Youth Sports Trust, a new charity formed in partnership between Dulwich CC and Lambeth Tigers FC, a community football club that will be the lead winter user of the ground. The Trust has secured a new 30 year lease on the Griffin from the Dulwich Estate, and will take this on later in the year.
We are thrilled to be partnering with Lambeth Tigers, who are a club that draws many of its members from less privileged communities in south London where young people are often denied access to the good sporting facilities we have in Dulwich. We have a shared ethos of social inclusion, and of high sporting standards without a “win at all costs” mentality.
The crowdfunder linked above is a joint initiative with Lambeth Tigers – both our crowdfunder page and theirs will jointly fund the same cause. If we reach our joint £20,000 target, we will secure match funding of £10,000 from Sport England.
Thank you so much for your generous support. It is the remarkable membership that makes volunteering for Dulwich Cricket Club so rewarding.
Very best wishes,
Sam Krafft, Junior Co-ordinator
Graeme Hough, Dulwich Cricket Club President
Sean Keaton, London Youth Sports Trust trustee
David Moore, Women & Girls Co-ordinator
Mark Henderson, Under 11 Girls Manager
Rich Baldie, Under 13 Girls Manager
Felix Pearce, Under 13 Girls Manager
LONDON YOUTH SPORTS TRUST CHARITY DETAILS
If you or your child would like to fundraise yourselves for the Griffin initiative, for example via a sponsored activity, you may need the following details:
Charity name: London Youth Sports Trust Ltd
Registered charity number: 1193695
Bank name: Starling Bank
Account name: London Youth Sports Trust
Sort code: 60-83-71
Account number: 14652217
IBAN: GB83SRLG60837114652217
BIC: SRLGGB2L
Please include the reference “Dulwich Cricket” in the reference box.
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