North West Club have a bright future

North West Club have a bright future

England Boxing have supported Wigton ABC to help create a sustainable future for the club.

The committee of Wigton ABC contacted Damian Ridpath the North West Club Support Officer Damian Ridpath in January 2018. The club at the time although they were operating sessions twice weekly were existing hand to mouth just about creating enough revenue to meet the rent monthly.

Initially Damian and club representative Dale Blaylock from Wigton ABC met to design a plan of action and a range of processes that would help the club move forward and create a sustainable future. Damian undertook a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities Threats) analysis of the club which Dale fed back to the committee of the club, and the club agreed to move forward taking the analysis into account.

To support the club moving forward 3 small grants were applied for from various funders to support what the club needed short term. The club in partnership with Damian applied and were successful with the grants to provide much needed equipment, which included AIBA stamped equipment to assist the club in hosting a show and seed corn funding to help the club host an event to raise money moving forward. All the applications were successful.

On May 19th Wigton ABC hosted their own show for the first time to sell out crowd in their town.  This has generated enough revenue to sustain the club for the next six months, and as they know have all the appropriate equipment they will be hosting their second event in December 2018. Furthermore, due to the interest that has been generated by hosting a show and the excellent groundwork taken by the club in the community, the club has now extended its club provision to 4 nights a week from 2 plus delivering high intensity fitness classes on a Thursday evening and a Sunday morning which has also generated a 25% growth in membership and revenue in a four-month period.

Damian said “Wigton ABC are a pleasure to work with, their committee particularly Dale and Andy are really proactive and have a clear strategy and vision for what they want their club to achieve both in short and over the long term. In engaging with me as the CSO they were willing to look at new ideas and a different way of achieving their goals from their original perception. They have worked really hard and in a smart way in the short term that will only benefit the club over a longer period.”

Committee member Andy commented on the night saying “The show was a major success better than I ever hoped it could go, and it has now given our club the drive to move forward and improve also giving us financial stability, so we can concentrate on the boxing side of things rather than worry about where our next month’s rent is coming from. My team and I can’t thank Damian and England boxing enough for standing by us and helping us with grant applications. We now have the drive to make our show biannual and things will only get better. The gym is booming now the home show has generated more interest from the youth of the town. So, the future is bright for Wigton abc. I’d like to thank everyone who played a part in the home show we couldn’t have done it without our tight knit team”.