August 2023

Dear Supporter,

On behalf of everyone at Orrell RUFC, I’d like to thank you for your support and past membership of the Club and hope that you will be continuing your membership for the forthcoming season.

As you may already know, we will be playing in the Northwest Counties ADM3 Lancashire & Cheshire, and our first home game is Bury on 16 September (and our first local derby of the season is 30 September vs Wigan). Plus, this season, we have a Senior U18s Colts team in quite some time - so there are some exciting times ahead for the Club and our members.

In addition to your membership, there are lots of other ways to support our Club and ensure a healthy future for its members, players and especially our Mini and Junior Section – so with that in mind, I like to extend a very special invitation to join us in a new initiative to help secure rugby at Orrell RUFC for the very many years to come.

Founded in 1927, the Club will celebrate its centenary in 2027 and in preparation for those celebrations I made the following appeal to a selected number of members and former players at the end of 2022.

"We propose to set up a centenary fund and raise money for that fund to be used to give the club financial stability over the next five years and to help ensure that we arrive at that centenary in good financial health and with a vibrant club reinvigorated after Covid.
To start the ball rolling I would like to invite you to join a new 500 club. I am prepared to commit a donation of £500 for each of the next five years to that fund provided that we can get a minimum of 10 others to make that same commitment.

Initially we asked for 10 people to make that commitment but now we have 22 members that have all signed up to make that pledge and help us celebrate our centenary. The first donations were received in January this year; some donations attracted gift aided which meant the Club generated additional funds. All funds are ringfenced for the use of the Centenary Club."

We now want to widen the invitation to all members, supporters and sponsors by asking you make a five-year commitment to the Club, either by making an annual donation of an amount of your choice or by purchasing an annual sponsorship of your choice.

In early 2025 we will need to start detailed work to organise events for the centenary, giving ourselves at least 2 years to put everything in place. We will be forming an organising committee over the coming season to start to gather ideas and hope to have a consolidated list of ideas for a plan by the end of 2024.

We all have great memories of our playing days at Orrell and the management team headed by Dave Robinson(Drob) is working hard to instil some of the values that underpinned the successes of the club during the 70s, 80s and 90s. They need to be able to develop the rugby operations without having to worry about the finances. We are an amateur Club, so this does not mean paying players, but it does mean creating an family orientated environment that is fun to be part of and which builds player loyalty.
We appreciate that times are difficult currently, but please don't put this to the bottom of the “to do” pile – a simple yes or no will suffice as soon as you can, so that we can press on with the Centenary initiative. and not pester you any further.

If you are interested and would like to help secure the future for Orrell RUFC (and support our Centenary Celebrations), would you simply complete the tear off slip below and return to the Membership Secretary. I will then get in touch with you directly either by email or telephone (whichever is your preference).

I look forward to hearing from you and please do not hesitate to contact me, should you have any questions or queries or would like to discuss the Centenary in more detail.
Kind regards

Tony Havlin
Orrell RUFC

(Copy of Tear Off Slip Information - for printable copy, please download a copy of the letter below). Alternatively, please email the information below to enquiries@orrellrugbyunion.com

Name
Email Address
Contact Telephone Number (If preferred method of contact)
Yes to Annual Donation
No to Annual Donation

Amount of Donation you can commit to £
Signature
Date