Cronulla Seagulls FC – Support for Funding for Inadequate Male/Female Changerooms

Cronulla Seagulls FC has grown rapidly over the last 5 years and now represents more than 1,500 players and over 3000 community members and their families.

This growth has seen us become one of the largest sporting clubs in New South Wales and a leader in female sports participation with our membership now having the highest % of female members across the Footballing community. With over 500 registered players our female base is larger than that of some clubs combined memberships and these players represent over 35% of our registered members, a fantastic achievement and something we as a club are proud to have been able to support and will continue to support.

In their recent Gender Action Plan of 2019, The Football Federation of Australia has a stated goal of 50% participation for female players and they are rightly excited that across Australia this number has now reached 22% of all players. We at Seagulls support this goal of enhancing female participation and we are looking for your support in continuing to offer the best possible playing experience for all members with a specific focus on our female player base.

As volunteers we love our club and all the players, families and community members who join us every year to celebrate all that is Football, but we are also saddened that we are not able to offer equality in our facilities with a lack of gender neutral changerooms meaning our female player base is severely disadvantaged and has to use what can only be described as embarrassing facilities.

In addition to not meeting our own nor community standards for equality, we also do not meet the Sutherland Council standards for inclusion however as a not-for-profit community group we are struggling to generate the much-needed funds to complete our DA approve changeroom build.

The redevelopment of the canteen and disabled access toilet/shower facilities were needed to allow us to demolish the existing inadequate changerooms and now we need your support to rally local council, state and federal politicians to support our request for funding for our new facilities for the community. We regularly apply for grants and whilst some of the smaller wins are fantastic, we are not getting to where we need to with the larger votes.

A healthy community is defined by more than the physical benefits that sport brings and stretches into the mental health and social connectivity that sport brings to the players, their friends, family and the broader community in general.
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