Dolgellau Rugby Club recently received a grant of £20,000 from the Millennium Stadium Charitable Trust as part of a massive fundraising effort to improve the club’s standard of facilities.

The club are near to completion on a £230 000 renovation project of the clubhouse for which they have received a total of £150,000 in grant funding.

Club chairman Peredur Jenkins said, “We received over £85,000 from a Welsh Assembly Government communities fund, £30,000 in total from two separate Gwynedd County Council funds – Mantell Gwynedd and CIST Gwynedd – three £5,000 grants from local charities the Peter Saunders Trust, the Trawsfynydd Decommissioning Fund and the Rock Fund and we also received a grant from a Police fund.

“The Millennium Stadium Charitable Trust is a unique organisation because it takes a levy from all tickets sold for Millennium Stadium events and ploughs the money back into communities. It’s great that on this occasion, the monies have gone back into rugby clubs with over 20 clubs around Wales receiving grants, so the stadium is benefitting the whole of Wales, not just Cardiff.

“In addition to the grants, we raised over £19,000 from selling two club debentures we had bought in 1966 – an astonishing return on a £50 investment – and organised other fundraising events.

“We hadn’t done anything on the club since it was built in 1979, we had really outgrown the facilities and decided to invest in a big way. Gwynedd County Council’s grant funding unit were a big help in assisting our grant application process.”

Club secretary Selwyn Goldsworthy said “We only had two changing rooms previously which was difficult on match days with two senior sides in the club, it meant we would have to play away sometimes just to accommodate that situation. It’s now a facility that can be enjoyed and utilised by the whole community and other sports clubs in the town have already shown an interest in using the facilities.”

Club vice-chair Glyn Edwards added, “We have developed the bar and lounge areas, with the Women and Girls teams choosing the furniture and decor in those rooms. We’ve added a disabled toilet and ramps as part of the grant conditions, and we now have brand new changing room facilities that can accommodate four teams. A new physio room and ref’s room means that we have all the modern facilities required of a 21st century rugby club.”