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 (2025-2026) the charities chosen by our members are Mind BLMK and the Above and Beyond Cancer Foundation.
Above & Beyond Cancer Foundation was established in 2012 by Karen and Jayne, two women who met and supported each other through their own diagnoses. The charity provides compassionate 1:1 personal support, resources, and encouragement to cancer patients and their loved ones. Their mission is to address the emotional, physical, and mental toll of a cancer diagnosis, delivering support directly to patients in non-clinical settings such as homes or local venues. In addition, they provide, organise and fund individual holistic therapies as well as delivering holistic and wellbeing events. They want to make sure that no cancer patient feels alone and that they have someone walking beside them, wherever possible, from the point of diagnosis.
Mind BLMK is a local charity that works across our communities to support positive mental health and wellbeing. They offer a range of activities at wellbeing centres and other venues to make a difference to the mental health and wellbeing of local people. Their aim is to make sure that no-one has to face a mental health problem alone. You can read their 2024 impact report here. It will give you a real feel of what they do and how they help people.
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.
