Assistance with Grant Applications

The WBRC has material available that may be useful in the compilation of a request for a grant to cover the cost of some particular project. This can often be a baffling process and the person in charge may appreciate any such form of help and guidance.

The following is a summary of the process supplied by Ross Provan of the Putaruru club which recently scored a dealing machine thanks to First Sovereign Trust Limited.

It is a very simple process

Basically:
Identify a potential funder in your area, in Waikato this could be Trust Waikato, or First Sovereign Trust Limited. Pub Charities are another good one, but there could be more. An 'on line' search will find them.

Then you will need to register with an email address and some basic details. You also will need to find out if they have any limits on grants (e.g. Trust Waikato only grant up to $5k which is not enough for a dealing machine), and what dates applications are to be submitted by. Some funders only award grants once a year, some monthly etc.

Once you have the target date for your application you will need to get together the following information as a minimum:

• Latest Club AGM Minutes
• Latest Club Financial Statements / Accounts
• Bank Statements
• A quote for the equipment you want the grant to buy

All of these things, and maybe more will be asked for in your application. The application is usually done online and you upload the various documents. If there is anything missing or not filled in properly the application may be rejected.

Specific to dealing machines:
The only supplier I know of in NZ is BridgeNZ in Whanganui. Contact them for a quote for the equipment you need - they did this for us.

Remember that you may need new boards and new cards for the dealing machine. The boards need to have bar codes attached (also available from Bridge NZ) so that the machine knows which board its dealing.

I assume you already have electronic scoring? If not, I would go for that first. We got a grant from Pub Charities for our Bridgemates which came from Jan Spaans of Bridgemate NZ.

Hope this is helpful and don't be afraid to ask any further questions you have.

Ross Provan