BBQ Clubhouse Project
Food, like sport, unites us, driving community engagement, which is why BBQ magazine has partnered with leading brands to reimagine the food experience at your local club, creating not just compelling commercial opportunities, but inspiring, educating and entertaining all age groups.
Sports clubs can connect with our partner BBQ brands to raise their cooking game as well as revenue, running community events around the fire to bring people together, while playing or watching sport – be it a first-class cricket county, or a junior rugby club.
Clubhouse members will benefit from exclusive content, recipes, promotions and product offers from leading brands, delivered across BBQ magazine’s multimedia platforms, driving and supporting the rapid rise in outdoor cooking and entertaining across the UK.
We will bring cooking demonstrations, classes and interactive experiences fireside and pitchside, as we search for the BBQ Hero inside your club. Partners to date for the BBQ Clubhouse project are Blackstone, DeliVita, Kadai, Kamado Joe, Traeger and Weber, with supporting brands Certainly Wood and Great Balls of Flour.
Clubhouse has already been piloted with cricket, launching at Surrey village club Rowledge, driving record revenues through cooking and catering on wood-fired ovens. Clubhouse has now expanded into support from the English Cricket Board (ECB) and the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which represents 20 counties and over 2700 clubs, as well as developing partnerships with rugby clubs, from Premiership to grassroots.
“Clubhouse is a terrific community enterprise that engages all the cricket clubs through the national counties network, while providing great commercial benefits, as well as new food offerings,” said Richard Logan, operations director at the NCCA and a former county cricketer, with counties such as Oxfordshire now offering member clubs access to ECB funding to invest in outdoor cooking equipment.
Working with BBQ Clubhouse, Minster Lovell Cricket Club in Oxfordshire obtained funding from the ECB County Grants Fund, which supports affiliated cricket clubs to create ‘welcoming environments, provide enhanced facilities and playing opportunities, and to help clubs tackle the impact of climate change’. Clubs can apply for grants between £1000 and £10,000.
Minster Lovell purchased a DeliVita gas oven for the club to elevate its pizza cooking game for players, families and supporters, as well as drive increased revenue.
“We use the oven every Friday evening during the cricket season, as well as at county games and when we host touring sides,” said Tim Gush, chairman of Minster Lovell Cricket Club.
“Being able to offer pizzas as an alternative to the conventional burgers and hotdogs has been a big plus for the club and we can’t cook them fast enough.”
The club has, through grant funding, now bought a Blackstone gas griddle and accessories to cook a wider variety of BBQ food, including breakfasts.
“We want to explore all possibilities and increase our range of menus. We are planning to extend our cricket pavilion, and this may include a permanent outdoor cooking area,” said Gush.
Hampshire Cricket is also working with the BBQ Clubhouse project.
“Clubhouse is such a great initiative that supports clubs in creating and increasing revenues, while helping to bring all of our communities together,” said Ben Thompson, cricket development director at the Hampshire Cricket Board.
“We are delighted that Portsmouth & Southsea is the first club in the county to buy a DeliVita oven under the ECB’s grant scheme and I am sure there will be many more in due course.”
Over the coming weeks BBQ magazine will be joining Hampshire Cricket’s development team for workshop events to engage the county’s 150+ clubs, where they will be showcasing the different types of grills and ovens available through the BBQ Clubhouse project and eligible for ECB grant funding.
Fireside Chat
Beyond the inspiration, education and entertainment and the opportunity for sports clubs to create new revenue streams, is the Fireside Chat, bringing people together to share stories and experiences. To talk, or indeed, not talk.
The team environment and its support structure does not stop when the final whistle blows, or stumps are drawn.
BBQ magazine’s Put it on a Stick initiative is to help sports clubs and their wider local communities reconnect, addressing issues around mental wellbeing and mindfulness, combating loneliness and isolation.
Fire is a powerful metaphor for renewal and resilience, cooking food on a stick for nourishment, before throwing the stick in the flames, symbolising casting off negative thoughts, with positive ones rising from the ashes.
Our Put in on a Stick toolkit, created in partnership with people and culture consultant Felicity King, a human behaviour specialist, will see club members trained to lead the campfire conversations with shared food the ultimate communal connection.
“BBQ, like sport, binds people together – communal experiences breaking down barriers, opening up lines of communication, bringing laughter and sharing sadness. That is the wider ethos behind Clubhouse. Do join us,” said David Taylor, partnerships director of BBQ magazine.
For further Clubhouse details contact David Taylor: david@thebbqmag.com
