Grant Law, secretary of Strathaven Dynamos FC and Garry Tough, president of Strathaven Rugby Club, came to Strathaven Rotary to brief its members on progress with the new playing surfaces and facilities at Whiteshawgate (EKRFC’s ground off Hamilton Road). Between them, the two clubs already field some 24 sports teams, involving around 450 players supported by more than 120 volunteers. These clubs play a huge part in the life of Strathaven and its community, but throughout their history they have been severely hampered by lack of playing and (even more importantly) all-weather practice facilities. Dynamos alone has to spend more than £1000 a month on transporting its young players to difficult-to-get venues in East Kilbride.
In a unique example of two such clubs from different codes coming together to try to solve a shared problem, a new charity – W3ST – was formed in 2015 to plan and raise funding for a major development in the rugby club’s grounds. At a cost of £655,000, two brand new pitches – one a full-size 3G pitch and the other a top quality grass one – are to be constructed. In his presentation, Grant Law outlined how the fundraising had gone and reported that the whole package was now sufficiently secure to allow work to start on site. The first, major contribution had been made Sport Scotland, (conditional of course on getting the rest in place), and contributions had also come in from a whole variety of other local and national charities. The two clubs, he noted wryly, had also had to empty their own piggybanks.
The Rotarians were hugely impressed by Grant’s presentation and showed their interest by asking him and Garry a whole range of questions: how would the surfaces be used; how would the joint use agreement work in practice; what were W3ST’s for further developments in the future? All these and more were answered clearly and candidly, and the Rotarians present were encouraged to look further on the web (www.w3st.org), Facebook and Twitter to keep themselves up to speed with the progress on this superb addition to the town’s environment. A vote of thanks proposed by Rotarian Nigel Thomson was rewarded by prolonged applause.
The photograph shows (L to R) Grant Law (EKDFC), Rotarion Nigel Thomson and Garry Tough (EKRFC).
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