Ulster Badminton Club Support Grant

Dear Club,

Ulster Badminton are looking to support a number of badminton clubs across the province with financial assistance for initiatives that support the development of their club and the sport as a whole. Focus should be on one or more of the following areas;

·       Recovery from the current Covid-19 pandemic

·       Providing a quality experience for members

·       Increasing club membership

To be eligible clubs will need to complete a club development plan and provide a brief outline on how the successful grant would be spent and its intended outcomes. Initial grants of £500 will be made available to clubs who are successful in the application process. Further funding may also be available.

The aim of the Ulster Badminton Club Support Grant is to help support Ulster Badminton’s affiliated clubs to recover, grow and develop from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and to get back to providing a safe and enjoyable environment for club members.

Clubs and their members will need to be affiliated for the 2020/21 season and clubs will need to return a fully completed club development plan. We do not require lots of detail just enough to allow us to assess your application and understand the direction you are going and how the grant will be spent. We appreciate many clubs will not have completed a club development plan before. In order to help you with this, examples have been provided in the template and Ulster Badminton staff will be available for you to contact to help you with this process. As a general guide this should include a few major areas that the club feel they would like to make an impact on over a certain timeframe and some information on how the club hopes to achieve this.

All applications will be assessed on the detail that is included in the development plans and we may ask for some further clarification from clubs if it is needed. If further funding is available, we may grant clubs further funding for particular elements of their development plan if we believe these will help provide a quality club experience for existing members and also help with the attraction of new affiliated members to the club and to Ulster Badminton.

We fully understand the main priority of all clubs at this time will be to get back up and running from the current COVID pandemic and this grant can be used to help support this. For example, it might be used to help secure an alternative training venue for a short period of time until your main venue is available again or it might be used to cover extra coaching costs for additional sessions due to numbers being limited as a result of distancing measures. However, we would also like clubs to consider how they might improve what they offer to help with member retention, for example, offering club coaching for adult members if this is something members desire. This would be a cost that could be covered by the grant. There may also be a possibility of clubs working within their local community to promote themselves to potential new members. People may have been negatively affected by COVID and may be looking to take up a new challenge within their local area. Costs of running taster sessions in community centres for interested individuals for example could also be covered by the grant.

The closing date for applications is Friday 18th December 2020 and all development plans should be emailed to ryanprentice@ulsterbadminton.com

 If you require any more information, or want to have a discussion around an idea, or your club wishes to avail of Ulster Badminton support in completing a club development plan then please contact Ryan Prentice on 07894507435 or via email at ryanprentice@ulsterbadminton.com

Regards,

Ryan Prentice

Club and Coaching Officer

Ulster Badminton