The Berkshire Community Foundation is an independent community foundation which raises new funds from a broad section of corporate and individual donors to support voluntary activity within Berkshire.  The foundation seeks to provide innovative leadership on community issues through thoughtful grant-making in support of those in need.  The grans budget is funded by the income from a growing permanent endowment and government grants.

Last year Avril and Alan put together an application for a Berkshire Community Foundation Grant.  In October 2008 we found out that we had been successful in our application, and that we had been awarded £4515.00 to be used to train new coaches and cover the majority of our coaching costs.

Having this grant has enabled us to maintain our coaching program and ensured  that we complied with Clubmark regulations by having the correct coach/player ratio.

We invited Rachel Hughes, Grants Officer along to visit the club on Friday 22nd May to see  the club in action, she seemed very impressed with what she saw.

Also Avril along with David McQuitty were invited along to meet Lesley Chambers, head of Grassroots Grants for England and were able to explain exactly what Grassroots funding has done for Crown Wood Cricket Club.  She was very pleased with the work we are doing for the community. 
 
The benefits of having this grant have shown.  This season we have been able to send more players of a suitable standard for County and District trials with more than ever being accepted into the County and District training squads.

Also, this season, more youngsters from our U13 and U15 age groups have played for our adult teams without looking out of place!  Scores to note were, an U14 scored 92 not out in a 2nd XI League game, an U15 scored 51 in an adult friendly game and an U14 took 5 wickets for 17 runs in an adult friendly game.  Having this coaching has also seen a big improvement in our U17 side, with one of them scoring 214 in a 2nd XI League game, another scoring  99 in a 2nd XI League game, another  scoring 69 in a 3rd XI League game and another taking 8 wickets for 43 runs in an adult friendly game.


We have just been informed that we have been successful in our application for the remaining £485, which we will be used to pay some of the Performance Cricket youth coaching on Friday evenings during 2010 summer.