ILKLEY RFC have raised over £3000 for NHS charities through a number of fundraising activities.

Rhys Morgan's men wanted to help their fans during these uncertainty times,while raising money for a great cause.

The club had set an initial aim of raising £1000 for the NHS on their Just Giving page, but have since blown that target out of the water.

Firstly, the Dalesmen did the ‘Run 5, Donate 5, Nominate 5’ craze, where members of the club would run five kilometres, donate £5 and then nominate five other people to follow suit.

The biggest donation came from the club running the distance of the Coast-to-Coast trail.

Last Friday, players, coaches, staff, ex-players, ex-coaches, partners and friends, attacked the 182 mile challenge, setting off from their homes and collectively covering the distance.

They ended up completing 315.6 miles and pushing the total raised to £3,020, at time of writing.

Vice captain, Chuckie Ramsay took on the role of activity coordinator with the intention to address four aims.

The targets are as follows; to keep people together during a time of isolation, to keep people active, keep people’s spirits high and have some fun, and to raise money for the NHS.

The club have continued to stay in regular contact with each other through various forms of social media.

This includes a weekly quiz night via video conference, in which members take turns to create and host.

Other activities include team ‘sing-along's’ and a number of the viral lockdown crazes going across social media including the ‘Toilet Roll Challenge', recently featured on the club’s Facebook page.

Ilkley have a number of personal trainers and strength and conditioning coaches amongst the players and support staff, who have offered free advice and programmes so that people can stay active from home.

The players have also offered their services to the local community to anyone in need of support, such as picking up essentials from the shop.

In the meantime, the club’s committee have been hard at work trying to make sense of the situation and manage the finances.

The club treasurer has taken all necessary steps to minimize outgoings, taken advantage of any subsidies and payment holidays on offer and generally kept tight control of the purse strings.

The annual club dinner, the 7 a-side tournament, the annual cricket match with Ilkley CC, caravan rallies and the many private functions held in the clubhouse will impact severely on next year’s accounts.

One positive was the notification of a £5000 grant from Sport England for flood reparations on the pitches. This work has been carried out already.

You can support the club’s efforts by using the link provided to donate, with all the proceedings going to NHS charities:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ilkley-rfc