£10,000 for Burnham BMX Club

Will Clarke from Burnham BMX Club explains how Somerset Community Foundation has helped shine a light on members’ racing ambitions with a grant for almost £10,000 from the HPC Community Fund’s small grants programme.

“We’re very much a grassroots club led by volunteers and we’re part of the local community. Our club caters for people from all walks of life with members from deprived backgrounds through to those with behavioural and learning problems. I personally think that a certain type of person is attracted to the excitement of BMX. My son lives with ADHD and it’s definitely a sport he can put his drive and energy into. It’s an individual sport – when you’re racing in competitions you’re racing on your own. However, you’re also part of a club, with all club riders together under a gazebo, so the support you receive is superb. To see relationships flourish at competitions with club riders who sometimes struggle with social interaction is heartwarming.

BMX rider in helmet at event in mid-air. people watching behind a fence and marquees in the distanceOur new winter BMX race series, Bristol and Burnham Under the Lights, attracted lots of new riders to our track here in Apex Park. In BMX a lot of the races happen in summer and so we wanted to give riders something to look forward to during the winter months. We got fantastic numbers of people coming out, but the feedback was that we really needed to look at our lighting. You obviously need decent visibility to race on a winter evening when it gets dark early.

In the past we’ve had a World Champion from Somerset who trained at our track. But over the last 10 or 20 years a lot of our facilities haven’t been properly updated. Resurfacing the track is a big priority for us – and so is the lighting. The lights we had were halogen and not really producing the right level of light. Plus, they used a lot of electricity and we got caught out with a two grand electricity bill at one point. That obviously isn’t sustainable.

Somerset Community Foundation provided a grant for £9,952 from the HPC Community Fund towards updating our facilities, specifically installing new LED lights. This won’t just bring our energy costs right down – it will also help us stay open later into the night and better run our sessions in winter.

We’re always looking to broaden our membership to more of our community. We’re not just for young people – our oldest member is 66 and the younger ones really look up to the adults. We want to attract more people, but to do that we have to make sure our facilities are up to speed.”

 

18.03.24

Impact Story details

Grant size:£10,000
Location:Burnham & Highbridge
Theme:Sport

Funding Programme:HPC Community Fund