Advantage Durham & Cleveland is an initiative sponsored by Durham & Cleveland LTA to provide financial support and share advice and best practice to LTA-registered Clubs and venues across the County. Our mission is to grow tennis across Durham & Cleveland by making it relevant, accessible, welcoming and enjoyable. Our objective is to increase the participation of adults and children at all levels of tennis and this can only be achieved by working in partnership with all our venues.
We have many successful and growing Clubs in the County, supported by hard-working and dedicated volunteers with a passion for our sport. Advantage Durham & Cleveland will help Clubs and volunteers by making it possible to share the vast amount of experience and knowledge that has been built up over many years. Every Club will, at some time, have had problems to deal with – maintenance issues, membership decline, court renewal, Clubhouse repair, etc – and will have found solutions to the problem. Sometimes those solutions will have been very successful, other times perhaps not – but always lessons are learned.
Advantage Durham & Cleveland will provide a forum for Club volunteers to share their experience and knowledge, and also seek advice from others who have faced similar problems. The Durham and Cleveland Clubs Forum is a private group exclusively for Club officers and volunteers to sign into, where advice, ideas, recommendations etc can be requested and shared on any topic relating to the running of your venue. Please pass this link to your Committee members and encourage them to sign up by sending a friend request – they can then be invited to join.
Advantage Durham & Cleveland has also created a small fund to provide financial support to venues in the form of interest-free loans. Venues are invited to register their interest by completing the Advantage Durham & Cleveland Small Loan Application Form.
The key features of the scheme are:
The main criteria for approving a loan are:
Durham & Cleveland LTA is making £5,000 available in interest-free loan funding in each of the next 3 years (2020 – 2022). The funding is for clubs to spend on a specific small project that they believe will make a difference at their club – it could be something that everyone wants but a shortage of funds due to other, more pressing, priorities means that it never seems to get done.
The maximum available to any one club is £2,500 and this must be no more than 50% of the total project cost. On completion of the Application Form, the Durham & Cleveland Club Liaison Officer will liaise with the Club to assess the application, and subsequently monitor the project to confirm that the work has been undertaken and expected outcomes achieved.
Applications may only be made by Clubs and venues that are registered with Durham & Cleveland LTA, and undertake to remain registered for the period of the loan. A club can only receive one loan during the period of this initiative. The Club must be willing for Durham & Cleveland LTA to publicise the award and what it was for on the Durham & Cleveland LTA website, at AGM’s and in general local and national publicity.
Here are a few examples that have been suggested as meeting the criteria:
But what would make a difference at your club? Only you know!