Locally owned and run. Engaged with and supporting our local community.
We pride ourselves on supporting our community and since our Club opened in 2017, thanks to our wonderful members and staff, we’ve raised over £70,000 for local charities. We engage with our community in three main ways:
- Directly supporting local charities financially.
- Helping local charities and community groups to raise funds themselves (donating prizes, etc.), especially (but not only) when fund-raising has a sports/health focus.
- Supporting local schools in squash/tennis/getting active (schools coming in to use our facilities, Bedford schools’ squash tournament, etc.)
Local Charity Fundraising
We ask our members to select two local charities each year, and these are the charities that we support via events and other fund-raising activities such as coffee mornings, quiz nights, sponsored exercise events and our annual charity Summer Ball. The selection process takes place in July-August each year and the selected charities are supported for 12 months. This year (2024-2025) the charities chosen by our members are The Bedford Blues Foundation and the Primrose Car Appeal.
The Bedford Blues Foundation is the charitable arm of Bedford Blues Rugby Club. Working across Bedfordshire and neighbouring areas, their mission is to inspire our community through the values of rugby to promote positive and informed lifestyle choices. The Foundation promotes community participation in healthy recreation by providing facilities for playing sport and physical activity. It also provides opportunities for education, sport, recreation or other leisure time activities for disadvantaged or vulnerable people across the community.
The Primrose Car Service provides award winning transport to cancer patients in Bedfordshire travelling to Addenbrookes Hospital for their radiotherapy treatment. This unique service, established in 2006 and believed to be one-of-a-kind in the UK, operates five days every week with a team of 25 volunteer drivers. Co-ordinated by a volunteer manager, the service is made possible by the Bedford Hospital Charity and Friends, through generous donations received from the community.
Support for Charities and Community Groups
We regularly support local schools, charities and community groups by providing prizes for events, competitions and raffles that they may be running. We allocate a budget each year for this purpose, and it is allocated on a first come, first served basis. Generally to obtain support, groups have to be reasonably local to the Club.
Junior Engagement in Squash and Tennis
We have a mission to revitalise squash in Bedfordshire, help drive tennis participation in the town, and help young people to get active in this screen-obsessed age. With this in mind we have a participation programme where we work with local schools to get them into the Club and using our facilities. We also run and financially support a performance programme for our squash and tennis junior members to help drive excellence.
