The Walderslade Club has been servicing our local community since 1937 as a volunteer run not-for-profit friendly society. The club's founding principles were to provide 'to its members the means of social intercourse, mutual helpfulness, mental and moral improvement, and rational recreation'. The great news is that after 80 years, we are still aiming to achieve these goals, which are as important as ever.

We currently have a local membership of 800 people, all of whom are able to use the club hall for free to host private parties, for example birthdays, anniversaries, or funerals. Unfortunately we do not at the moment have a space to prepare food for these events, such as buffets or simple hot foods, and so they have to be catered offsite, which can be more expensive and less convenient to our members. In addition, we are not able to provide much more than crisps and a sausage roll to our hungry members and their guests during our busy evenings of entertainment.

At the club we have a committee room which we are proposing to convert into a fully functioning kitchen. We have already been setting aside money for our kitchen fund through running a popular afternoon tea, through donations from our volunteers, and by creating a side game for our regular bingo sessions, and have managed to raise £1,000 to get things started. We are working with local school Greenacre Academy, whose pupils will be assisting with plans and some of the work, which will be beneficial to their education, as well as to the project. This fund raising campaign will help pay for the materials required, the equipment, and also the work required with respect to water, drainage and electricity.

We will be publishing regular updates on our kitchen project on our Facebook site, and through Twitter @waldersladeclub. The project will be kicking off soon with the funds that we have managed to raise already through our generous members in the club.

We would welcome any donations that you might be able to make, no matter how small, as truely ‘every little bit helps’. If you have any kitchen equipment that you might like to donate instead, or might be able to help us in another way, please contact us at committee@waldersladeclub.co.uk. If we are lucky enough to receive more than enough funding, any excess will be spent on making the club more accessible to our disabled members, through the installation of a disabled bathroom and outside wheelchair ramp.

Thank you in advance for your donation!