Facilities
Finding facilities
If you are just starting out you’ll need to work out your basic requirements first:
- Do you need a field or court?
- Do you need somewhere for your players to get changed and toilet facilities?
- How many teams will you need to have space for – if you have more than one are they all able to play at the same time?
- Do you need rooms for your committee to meet in or can you do this at someone’s house?
Once you’ve worked out what you’ll need, have a look around in your local community to see what kind of facilities there are and whether or not you’d be able to share or use these. Go for a drive and note down any potentially suitable facilities in your community .These might include:
- A local school – they may have fields or netball courts that you are able to use or hire.
- Nearby public parks – many are available to be used for smaller, informal practises – check with your local council.
- Universities, polytechnics or colleges – many have their own teams and you may be able to come to an arrangement to borrow their facilities.
- Larger community clubs – they may be keen to build a partnership with your new club that involves sharing facilities.
Make contact with these community facilities and check out whether or not they are able to be used by your club and the obligations or fees for your club involved in doing this. You’ll also need to check if there are any maintenance activities that you’ll need to undertake for these facilities. Public facilities are usually taken care of by the local council but it’s important to check out what the conditions of use are.
If your sports club is a larger one or if you require a more specialist facility, you may need to lease a facility for your club. If this is the case, there may be other sports club similar to yours who could be interested in sharing with you.
Check your local Yellow Pages or your local council website for any potentially suitable facilities that your club may be able to hire.
Go to top
Is there funding available to help your club?
Your club may be eligible for a grant to assist with costs; this may include any fees for hiring or leasing facilities. There are several organisations that are able to make these grants. Application forms are usually available on the internet and are reasonably straight forward, so long as you have all the information about your club that they may require.
The Lotteries Commission and Department of Internal Affairs are the main sources of community grants and their websites have lots of information about what your club may be eligible for. You’ll also be able to download grant application forms from these websites.
There may also be funding available from community groups in your area. These may include community-based groups such as Lions or Rotary or existing sporting organisations. SPARC also provides a directory of these types of organisations so you can check if there’s an organisation that may be able to assist your club.
Other funding sources include:
The sponsorship, fundraising and grants section of Club Kit also has more information on how to apply and what is available.
Go to top
Leases and agreements
Your club may be able to lease a facility that suits your activities. This will need to be a joint decision made by your management committee.
There are three basic types of tenancy agreements. These are fixed-term tenancies, periodic tenancies, and service tenancies:
- Fixed-term tenancies are for a specific length of time and cannot be ended with notice.
- Periodic tenancies are ongoing tenancies of no fixed length that can be ended by giving notice.
- Service tenancies are related to a contract of service between the landlord as employer and the tenant as employee. A separate contract for the tenancy does not need to be drawn up in writing for there to be a service tenancy and rent may not have to be payable.
Go to top
Resources and more information
Go to top
