As we enter into 2021 a New Year with the current difficult circumstances for everyone we thought it would be a good time to give you all an update on where the club is currently and our plans for the future.

For our longer serving members you will know we started a savings and fundraising plan a few years ago in an attempt to raise enough money to help us achieve our ambitions of getting a home of our own.

For newer members our plan was to raise £100,000 and work with the local authority to gain some land where we could build our own home. We also have businesses and individuals who were willing to match that total if we achieved our target and obtain some land. Initially we did some large fundraisers which brought in over £50,000 from just 2 events and since talks stalled with the local authority we felt we could not fundraise for that any further until we had some certainty around it. Instead we structured ourselves financially so that from the £21 subs we made sure we put a small proportion of that into a savings account with the hope still that we could achieve our long term aims. Over the last few years we have managed to save around £10,000 a year solely from our income. (Your £21 a month subs) This includes getting the best price where we can for our expenditure. Our savings currently stand at over £80,000 and there is over £12,000 in our current accounts which is the money the teams have access to in their own accounts.

If Covid had not hit us and we had not suffered several months’ loss of subs we would have been at the point of achieving our £100,000 target by the end of this season. This is because we save money and have very little going out to individuals. Our payments to individuals in the club are small, proportionate and cover certain necessary costs such as book keeping, admin, financials and coaching costs. From our membership of 400 roughly bringing in around £8000 a month we were managing to put away £800 to £1000 a month into our savings prior to the pandemic hitting but we have not been able to do this during the pandemic due to not getting the usual income (because we stopped taking membership payments during periods of lockdown) but still having our usual bills to pay. Believe it or not we have paid everything we had to already for the season so far despite hardly playing, on top of that things like ref fees have had a huge increases, facility fees have gone up and so on.

Our club reputation is everything to us and this includes financially. Our accounts are open and transparent and every team manager gets their team’s accounts every quarter so they know how there team is doing financially and what money they have access to. We pay our bills promptly and on time every time with every supplier, a lot of which say we are their best payers. All of this can’t be done without all of our members support and paying their subs on time like you do so thank you to you all.

Long term our aim is to still have a home of our own where we can have a club house and pitches available to use for our members. To have top class facilities and a superb environment that the community and club feel like its home. More than just bricks, mortar and pitches, more than just where you turn up to train and play, a real community club home invested in and improved on year after year. With our financial model the money we currently save would be invested back into the site each year for improvements that our members want like pitch & facility improvements without the need to ask for extra money from you our members. Not only that but with our site we would save even more money on facility hire costs (even during the summer we pay out roughly £10k on facility costs), pitch hire costs (several thousand pounds currently), income from food and drink, tournaments and events etc, all this money would be invested back into the site instead. Yes we would have maintenance costs but our income would massively allow us to have a continual investment programme on any site for improvements. This is because our structure allows this and we don’t have huge outgoings in terms of wages thanks to all of our fantastic volunteers. We are still in communication with the local authority on this and if they could help us achieve our ambitions we could have the best site in the north east for community grass roots sports in years to come.

We have not just stood still though waiting for something to happen. In the last 12 months alone we have done some great work. We have completed all of the following:

• A new first team is up and running which gives us a great pathway for our members to play from U7s to adults. Initial matches played at Nissan proved a huge success with sell out games. Keep an eye on our social media pages for updates and fixtures.

• Talks are ongoing about a new reserve / U23 team for the start of next season

• We have increased our membership and team numbers again as we have done every year.

• We have started on an exciting new partnership with Nissan sports and leisure to utilise their site for playing pitches at 9 and 11 aside from U11 to the first team. This is a relationship we are extremely keen to develop and even if we did get our own site we would remain there as long as they would have us as the facilities are fantastic and we are big enough to operate from more than one facility. This is a great partnership for the future.

• We are working on a better improved partnership with our other facility providers which we hope will benefit us even further. As you know our mini tots to U11s all train on a 3G surface all year round not just winter despite the cost to the club.

• We have top class Adidas kit and a new home and away kit is currently being worked on which will be unique to us a club. Not only playing kit but all our training kit is Adidas branded which is one of the best if not the best on the market.  (no expense spared)

• Our website & social media branding and reach is huge and allowed us to reach out even further in the community and when the pandemic is over and normality resumes we hope to see the benefits of this in terms of numbers and income.

• We have still attracted some top sponsors this year for our teams all of which can be seen on our website and we offer huge thanks to every one of them in these trying times. Sponsors know that any money invested goes into those teams’ accounts directly to the teams for the manager to use as they see fit.

• We have a new payment provider system up and running which we hope to develop with a fundraising capability when the time is right. This has allowed us to pause subs payments during lockdown periods without any need for you our members to do anything.

So despite everything things are still really positive for the club we just need a site of our own to give you all a place we can call home. The council know our plans in detail and when the pandemic is over and restrictions are lifted we will back on to them again to resume talks and see what we can do working together in partnership to provide the community of Washington with a fantastic community facility that everyone can use from babies to the elderly. We are not just taking football pitches and a changing room facility here we are talking about a real community hub for everyone to utilise and for it to be the heartbeat of the community.

You should all be proud of what we have achieved, every member every volunteer has got us to this stage now we just need to hold tight and push on when the opportunity arises. Remember all the money we have raised so far comes from your subs payments and your support including that of our supporters and sponsors. This is what allows us to be in such a good position financially.

All for £21 a month subs or cheaper if you have a family membership!

We have also received messages about fundraising and people wishing to donate. We are not currently fundraising as a club, teams maybe individually but we are not as a club. We don’t wish to fundraise until we have something substantial to raise funds for. Other costs we can cover on our current income and wouldn’t ask for extra money to pay for. Please keep supporting your teams fundraising efforts though as it’s important and you are safe in the knowledge that you know where the money goes, directly into those teams’ accounts.
Here’s hoping to a successful 2021 and getting some good news about a home when we can really raise the roof of the club and show everyone what we can do given the opportunity.

Finally if you’re reading this and are not currently part of our club then why not get in touch with us about becoming a member. If you think what we offer is different or better than what you are currently getting and you like the look of what we can offer we would be more than happy to discuss membership and explain a bit more about what we are about. Or just ask our members, players, managers, coaches, parents etc they will tell you just what we are about.

Thanks for your support!
Washington United FC – Football, friends, family, fun – community for all. #unitingwashington