Charity status - what next?

As was reported in the recent news story, after a lot of effort and persistence the club is now a registered charity. But what does this mean?

Well, significantly, it means that we are now in a position to be able to boost club funds via the UK government's Gift Aid scheme, which allows 25p to be claimed for every £1 received.

As the news story mentioned, it may or may not be possible to claim Gift Aid for membership subscriptions. But we can definitely claim it for amounts donated to the club . . . when we're registered for Gift Aid with HMRC that is. That's right, just when you thought all the form filling was at an end and a registered charity number would be all you'd need and you find out that there's a different charity number for the HMRC! Val Stewart and I have been progressing the online application for this, so we'll hopefully have it sorted soon.

And when we finally have the Gift Aid registration, how about getting the clubhouse finished?

Quotes obtained earlier this year indicated that we need about £2000 to have the floor levelled, a hard-wearing surface covering put down, and the architraves and skirting installed. So could the UK taxpayers amongst us donate a little to push towards this amount? Remember, each £10 will be worth £12.50. So if you can stretch to £40, the club will get £50 with Gift Aid. And if someone were to donate £100 we'd get an extra £25 from the government!

At the appropriate time an on-line donation mechanism will be put in place (something like Just Giving, but hopefully with a lot lower fees). Please support this if possible - we can hopefully get the clubhouse finished once and for all later this year!

And any UK taxpayer donating at least £16 (which of course is £20 after Gift Aid) will be offered a clubhouse key without paying the one-off £20 clubhouse completion levy - bargain! :-)

So, please keep a look out for the donation facility in a few weeks time and let's get that thing finished!