Charity Nominations for 2024-2025 are now Open

Since we opened the Club in 2017, we are thrilled to have raised over £70,000 for local charities, thanks to the wonderful support of our members and staff. 

Every summer we ask members to choose two charities, which we then support over the following 12 months through a series of events held at the Club. Examples include our coffee mornings, Spinathon and bi-annual Summer Ball. This past year we have also had some personal sporting challenges in the Club: you may recall a 24-hour Racquets challenge and more recently a 100km rowing challenge.  We also introduced our social guest fee in 2023, £5 per guest with all of these fees being passed straight through to the chosen charities. 

It’s now time to ask: who you would like the Club to support for 2024-2025?

The process we go through is:

• We ask for nominations from our members during July. Only one nomination is needed for the charity to be included on our short-list. Charities must meet the nomination criteria, which are listed below.
• The list of all nominations is sent to all members at the end of July, and we ask you to vote during August for the charities you want us to support over the next 12 months.
• The two charities with the most votes are selected for the Club’s support.

Charity Criteria:

The main two points are that the charity must be either:

• A local (to Bedfordshire) charity. By “local” we mean the charity supports people within the local area of north and mid-Beds (within about 10-15 miles of the Club).

and/or

• A charity involved in sport and/or fitness.

There are also some other points/criteria to note:

• The nomination must be for a charity with a registered Charity Number (e.g. it cannot be a CIC).
• Mainstream or privately funded schools cannot be nominated; however, schools supporting special needs children can be nominated as long as they can provide a charity number.
• If the charity is a local/branch division of a national charity, the national charity will need to provide in writing confirmation that funds will go to this local branch/division and that this will not have any negative impact on other funds that the national charity shares with this local branch/division.
• Nominations need to be from a person with an active adult Club Towers membership, and each of these members can nominate up to two charities.
• Once a charity has been supported by the Club, it cannot be nominated again for 5 years. The charities currently excluded on this basis are: Bedford Open Door, Bedford Hospital Charity & Friends, Bedfordshire Sands, CHUMS, the Tibbs Dementia Foundation & The MS Therapy Centre and most recently FACES and St John’s School.

Nominations are now open and should be sent to [email protected] by midnight on the 26^th July. All adult members can nominate up to two charities.  Please send through the charity number when nominating.

After the closing date for nominations, a list will be circulated in early August of all the nominations that meet the above criteria and members will be asked to vote for their top two. Members on our waiting list can nominate and vote.  Charities only need one nomination to make the shortlist. The votes are what makes the difference for selection.

Any questions, please send them to [email protected].