I’m writing to share with you the final total of our Crowdfunding appeal which closed at 3.30pm on Friday and to share with you a lovely gesture from our “guardian angel” Heidi Davies.

Firstly I’m pleased to report that an amazing 302 members of the Vandals family have taken the time and effort to donate to the club they love in its hour of maximum need. Given the very challenging environment and economic hardship this dreadful pandemic has created I am blown away by this level of engagement from all sections of our club.

I’m very proud to announce that thanks to the generosity of these 302 proud Vandals our Crowdfunding appeal has raised an incredible .............................£31,500 including gift aid.

Can I say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who took time to donate, you should all be really proud of yourselves for stepping up. I would also like to say a special THANK YOU to our alumni of international Vandals who may be thousands of miles away but still came through for us even though many of them may never visit the island again. These generous donations and messages of support from our international alumni really re-enforces just what a special club we are and I would urge you all to find time to read the 115 comments that have been left on our Crowdfunding page. As the old sign in the 1st XV changing room read; “Winners make it happen, losers let it happen”

When we launched this Crowdfunding appeal back on 10th December 2020 I wrote about the amazingly generous gesture from Heidi Davies the widow of Vandals legend and ex-President Eric Davies who committed to match every £ the club raised through our Crowdfunding appeal. Today I’m delighted to announce that Heidi has gone above and beyond this commitment to match and has instead donated £50,000 in recognition of how much the Vandals meant to Eric and the very good times he had here. On behalf of Vandals everywhere I would like to thank Heidi for this incredible gesture and whilst Eric is sadly no longer with us his “Once a Vandal, always a Vandal” spirit lives on.

With gift aid added Heidi's amazing donation becomes £62,500 with means the total of our COVID recovery appeal is now sits at an amazing £94,000!!!!!!!

This fundraising figure now means the club is well placed to not only survive this dreadful pandemic without having to take on significant debt but we will also now be in a position to invest in improving our facilities for all the benefit of all the members and continue to invest in the development of all our players in all our sports. I look forward to being able to update you on these improvements in the weeks and months ahead and for you being able to see them yourselves once we are able to re-open our club in hopefully the not too distant future.

Whilst the COVID situation still remains fragile the rapid roll out of the vaccines certainly gives us hope for the future and the club leadership team are already making plans for when we are able to re-open. They are also discussing ways in which we can play some form of rugby and netball alongside cricket this summer and how we create the right environment for Vandals to want to come back down to the island. I look forward to being able to update you’re in more detail once plans are finalized.

I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who supported this our first ever crowdfunding appeal, I would particularly like thank Matt Stoney a junior parent who stepped forward after my appeal for volunteers and who has handled the technical management of the crowdfunding platform and to my daughter Molly who filmed and directed my video messages. Thank you guys.

Finally, I recognise that lock down can be very tough and if you’re on your own, lonely, feeling down or things are getting on top of you please remember that your Vandals family is here for you, reach out to a coach, a teammate, an ex-teammate or even myself.

Good luck to everyone who is scheduled for a vaccine in the weeks ahead, thank you to those amazing front line workers and volunteers (including Lucy our netball chairwoman) who are administering the jabs.

I look forward to seeing you all down the club again soon.

Very Best wishes

Kev

Kev Keaney
Club President