Our ask: can you offer a 'reward' we can use to thank our supporters?

Between now and the start of September, we're contacting local businesses and individuals to ask if they might be able to provide a reward* (more info below) that we can use to thank people who pledge to support our project later in the year.

In return, your name will be visible to everyone who visits our fundraising page and will be associated with this community project. We will be promoting this widely up and down the Hope Valley in August, September and October.

Examples of rewards that you might be able to offer include things like:

• A meal voucher
• Merchandise
• A service you can provide: tutoring, dog-walking, carpentry, beauty treatment, introductory membership, consultancy
• An experience you can host: site visit or tour, participation in an activity

If you can help, please reply to the club via sec@bamfordtennis.org.uk to let us know and we'll follow up to work out the details.

What we are fundraising for

This project will help more people in the Hope Valley become active by renovating a dedicated single tennis court and marking it out for pickleball, a popular way in to the health and wellbeing benefits of racket sports. 

Few activities beat the cardiovascular, bone, muscle, brain and wellbeing benefits of racket sports. But making those first steps on the court can be expensive, embarrassing or physically daunting. This puts off girls and young women, those recently injured, ill or inactive and older people in particular.

In welcoming new players to Bamford tennis club since covid, we've found people like to start out on a single court as it is more private and fenced in on all sides - stopping stray balls venturing on to other courts! One of the most promising ways to encourage more tentative or vulnerable locals is to offer this court for dedicated play and free supported sessions. 

We have the volunteers ready to give their time at the club, equipment to loan and enthusiastic support from Hope Valley College. We even have some older valley pickleball players ready and waiting to use the club.

All we need is to renovate our single court - fondly known as 'the 4th court' - resurfacing it to make it safe for play and marking it out with lines for pickleball as well as tennis. Currently it's 22 years old and not fit for purpose.

The estimates for this work come to £20,000. If we can crowdfund £10,000 then Sport England will match us with another £10,000. 

With this funding, we are confident we can help 50 more people from tentative or vulnerable groups to get active within a year, not to mention current players having the option to play on an upgraded court too. That's a lot of healthier, happier people!

Project timeline

The timing of this work is as follows:

• Now to end-Aug: Preparatory work, lining up rewards*
• Aug, Sept, Oct: Club will promote the project up and down Hope Valley
• 6 Sep to 25 Oct: Our fundraising window, when supporters can pledge donations to the project, some of which will be in return for a reward
• Spring 2026 (if fundraising successful): do the works to upgrade court 4
• Summer 2026: actively support target groups (young women and older folk) to start using our repurposed court

*What are ‘rewards’? How does that work?

We will have a page on the online platform Crowdfunder to publicise our project and collect and record what we raise. It will be live from 6 September to 25 October 2025. This is to say we will only be actively fundraising for that 7-week period.

On our Crowdfunder page, supporters will be able to donate to the project. Also via this page, there will be the option for the club to offer rewards that supporters can choose from, as a thank you for supporting us.

Rewards include things like vouchers, merchandise or experiences. For example, Bamford Tennis Club will be offering rewards that we hope will appeal to businesses and individuals in the Hope Valley, like coaching, membership packages for tennis or pickleball, and the opportunity to advertise on our fencing.