Clipston Recreation Field Trust

 

Recreation Field / Playing Field

Latest News
Pavilion and Pavilion Hire
Tennis Courts and Tennis Club
Play Areas
Sports Field and Hire
Woodland areas
History
About us

Fund raising:
100 Club - Please join!
Village Festival
Music Concert
Trail Run
Contact Details

 

Dates for your diary:

Clipston Festival Saturday June 24th

Latest News:

A successful Clipston Trail run raised around £1000 for the Rec and £200 for cake making for CWI

 

 

 

Festival Raffle winners list 2022
Many thanks to all our raffle prize contributors. Please let the contributors know if you use their products that you appreciate their contribution to the Clipston festival, thanks.

 

TRAIL RUN

A "New for '22" 5-ish mile race to be held on Sunday September 25th along with the Clipston Trail Half
Entries at https://raceharborough.co.uk/clipston-trail-half

GoFundMe

The impact of the popularity of the playing field has meant that we have had to increase the amount of maintenance we need to carry out. We have an annual inspection for RoSPA each year
and they had identified the increased wear in the surface of the young children’s play area as a concern. We are now working with an excellent playground maintenance company who have installed all the new rubber mulch and the new basket swing. This is all paid for by you, through the 100 Club and your attendance at our events. Without your contributions we would not be able to run the recreation field as we do. It’s probably worth saying again that CRFT is an independent charity, we are not council funded like many other play areas. We appreciate the support from Clipston parish Council but the money that goes to run and improve the area comes from fundraising. If you’d like to make a donation, please go to www.gofundme.com.

Tennis club

Professional coaching available both for adults and juniors.
For further details please contact Laura on 0776 655 7122.

 

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Pavilion and Pavilion Hire

The Pavilion is available for hire for £10 per hour for the length of the event, setting up and clearing up times are not charged for within reason. The charge is more if showers are required. Some examples of past hirings are adult and children's parties, music/band practising, a physiotherapy venue, meeting room, pre-school venue. For more information please email or phone. Contact Details

Download the pdf for Pavilion hiring information here

The main pavilion area and kitchen was reburbished in 2015 with a Big Lottery grant.

 

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Tennis Courts and Tennis Club

Clipston is very fortunate to have 2 good quality tennis courts. These are “owned” by the village through the Recreation Fields Trust and as such they are freely available to everyone and anyone in the community to use with no lock on the court and no need to pre-book or be a member of the Tennis Club. However there is an active Tennis Club and there are benefits to being a member (current cost in 2020 of £30 per year) of the Club.

For a start the Club is very inclusive, welcoming players of all standards (ideally able to sustain a rally) and has a very popular “social” night on Wednesday evenings (4:00'ish – dark) where we play predominantly mixed doubles before adjourning to the pub when darkness falls! Whilst social there is a competitive edge to these matches but primarily they are fun! The benefit to being a member is that you can come down on your own and be guaranteed a couple of hours playing with others, mixing and swapping who you play with and against no matter what your standard. And the Club provides new balls regularly!

Since the pandemic we also have agreed with CRFT that one day a week (Thursdays 9:00-5:00) will be reserved for, or at least priority given to, Club members who can then “pre-book” courts on an hourly basis guaranteeing that the court will be free for pre-arranged matches. Those taking advantage of this tend to play more seriously (often a best of 3 sets) and presumably arrange games with those of a similar standard………….but again if you are a Club member then anyone can book and use the court for a session of their own choice.

In 2022 we will similarly be reserving use of the courts at certain times to allow for professional coaching to take place, both for Club members (who will get a discount!) and non-Club members, including youngsters. We hope this initiative will prove popular with budding Roger Federer’s and Serena Williams’s. It may also prove beneficial to another new (or rather “resurrected”) initiative in that the Club have decided, after a hiatus of nearly 20 years, to re-enter the world of competitive tennis and are entering teams in the East Northants Tennis League. To play in this (Mens, Womens, Mixed) you will have to be a member of the Club…….but we’re always open to new members joining us Rafa!

So, as you will see there are benefits to joining the Club……………and if you want more details on how to do so then please contact Martin Clarke 01858 525 558

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Play Areas

There are two play areas one aimed at younger children which has been updated over the decades and one aimed at older children and adults mainly installed in 2015 and added to in 2018. 

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Sports field and Hire

The sports field is available for hire for regular team sports. Presently we have Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning adult football teams who use the main pitch and a children and fathers Saturday morning team on the smaller pitch. The pavilion can be used for teas and showers but must be cleaned by the team using the facility.  For more information please email or phone. Contact Details

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Woodland and picnic area

The Woodland area at the top of the field was planted in the winter of 2016/17 with the trees supplied by the Woodland Trust and the bulbs, play trees and benches by a Big Lottery grant. We planted approx 400 small saplings and 20 specimen native woodland and orchard trees. Some of these are: Oak, Silver Birch, Hawthorn, Holly, Rowan, Apples, Pears, Plums. Spring bulbs were also planted to hopefully naturalise and increase over the years. The woodland gives the recreation field an interesting place to walk and a picnic area.

Stepping Stones Forest School Leader, Jo Dewar, said “We had a lovely time planting the trees and the children were delighted to help. It will be great to have a new area for the children to explore in Forest School - I think the play tree will be very popular!’ Andy Blake, Chairman of CRFT said "The area will become a great addition for Stepping Stones, which takes pre-schoolers to the playing fields every Thursday to enjoy their Forest School. Their weekly adventures allow them to run and play and learn about the world around them by exploring animals and nature, building dens and making potions and mud pies!"

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History

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About Us

We are a small dedicated group of volunteers who meet approximately four times a year. Besides fundraising we organise a couple of working party Sundays a year to do any maintenance needed. Volunteers are always welcome to help either on the committee or with the working party.

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100 Club 

The 100 Club is a fund raising lottery with three monthly prizes totalling £175 to help raise much needed funds and have fun in the process!

The draw is held monthly with a 1st prize of £100, 2nd prize of £50 and 3rd prize of £25 (unless members are lower than 75). Winners are posted on this website and on our Facebook page.
100 Club form and details download For more information about the 100 Club including how to join.

Please join!  Call, text or email Nikki Bugla for more details or any questions 07856 775770 / nicola@abbeypark.co.uk

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100 Club Prize Winners - 2022

	1st Prize	2nd Prize	3rd Prize
Jan	Trish Towers	Alan Skinner	Hannah Eveleigh
Feb	Cara Bolton	Paul Barber	Peter Warren
Mar	Dave Wilford	Gill Burbidge	Kate Pointon
April	Becky Tomkins	Jon Tedd	Toby Alderson-Smith
May	Vicki Scales	Carl Sommer	Mike Parrott
Jun
July	Jasmine Nembhard-Francis	Stephen Woodgate	Claire Harvey
Aug	Steve Carpenter	Peter Hartley	Mike Parrott
Sept	Faye Tan	Liz Davies	Andrew Wilkingson
Oct	Peter Warren	Val Carpenter	Jim Tyson
Nov
Dec

100 Club Prize Winners - 2021

	1st Prize	2nd Prize	3rd Prize
Jan	Marsha Day	Beth Wakefield	Cara Boulton
Feb	Moira Willey	Dave Wilford	Hannah Eveleigh
Mar	Jim Tyson	Trish Towers	Peter Hartley
April	Peter Goodchild	David Wilford	Helen Clements
May	Rose Westerway	Shaun Beasley	Vicki Scales
June	Dominic Pemberton	Claire Harvey	Tim Mayer
July	Dan halls	Nikki Bugla	Toby Alderson Smith
Aug	Peter Warren	Julie Bott	Paul Barber
Sept	Helen Bellamy	Steve Carpenter	Liz Davis
Oct	Sue and Alan Marshall	Ian May	Vicky & Ken Bland
Nov	Dave Bates	Angela Fellowes	Christina Faull
Dec	Sam Rastogi	Charles Gowling	Marsha Day

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Village Festival Saturday July 2nd 2022

For the last few years we have hosted and run the yearly village festival. This has involved most of the village organisations and many other village people who come together to make a very memorable event. The majority of the money raised goes to help with the upkeep of the playing fields and renewal of equipment or new projects and to other village organisations who have participated.

 

 A few quotes from villagers and images

“Really enjoyed sitting with the breeze drifting through the marquee, with friends dropping by for a leisurely chat; loved the Clipston AllStars and the Knobbly Knees competition – some great laughs that day!”

"Smooth and supple, knobbly and gnarly, hairy, muscly, young, old...what a diverse range of knees Clipston festival provided me with to judge. A fantastic effort and, from the opinion of a “professional judge”, what a competition!"

"Can you see anything through that hairband? (Over her eyes)" - Knobbly Knees judge: A bit but I’ve got my eyes shut! (She didn’t  even recognise her husband or brother)"

"As always it was a fabulous occasion to play at - I drank a pint of water on stage and a pint of Prosecco afterwards!"

"My two main memories -the final encore bouncing on the new stage extension with Timmy, and earlier on seeing Kev come onto the stage and going onto one knee to propose to Jess."

"Brilliant festival yet again, thanks to all who contributed and organised. Have always loved the community spirit, and now it's stronger than ever!"

"The vicar took the biscuit at the dog show. Even after she’d fallen,  the egg and spoon were still intact off the ground!"

 "It is a great village event which everyone loves and I think I can speak for us all by saying that the amount of work that it takes to organise is massively appreciated"

" We feel very lucky to be living and raising our child in such a fantastic and beautiful village with such great community spirit - thanks again to you all"

"Lots of work by so many for our enjoyment. Thanks everyone!"

"Well done and thank you. Love our village. It’s the best. Xxxxx"

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Music concerts

Light classical music concerts run in conjunction with the Church are another fund raiser, usually in the autumn or spring.  A matinee performance for younger children and an evening performance for adults has proved very popular.

 

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Trail run

Our fundraising half marathon trail run, starting and finishing in the recreation field, is starting to become an annual fixture around September/October. This event is run by us but promoted and supported by Race Harborough. We are lucky to have Clipston WI and Alison Morley making fabulous cakes for runners and supporters.

Race information 2022

Event date: Sunday 25th September 2022

The 4th Clipston Trail run includes a new 5 miles Country Trail as well as the original Half Marathon'ish Trail Run, using paths on the rolling hills across-country. Starting/finishing at Clipston Recreation Ground, Station Road, Clipston Market Harborough LE16 9RN.

The racing will start at 9 a.m. There is no formal cut off time but you should expect to finish within 3 1/2 hours. Entry fee £22.50
 If you would like to help as a marshal please contact Mark Ginns on 07949 954 363. If you are interested in the run itself, visit Race Harborough
Competitors must be at least 17 on the day of the race.

Contact details:

Andy Blake Tel 07768 554 395  Email: andyblake4@hotmail.com  or clipstonplayingfields@gmail.com

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