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A boxing club has bought new equipment and carpeted the gym with cash seized from criminals.
The £2,500 grant for Rhyl Boxing Club came from a special fund set up by North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones.
The grant was awarded as part Your Community Your Choice initiative is aimed at organisations who pledge to run projects to tackle anti-social behaviour and combat crime and disorder in line with the priorities within the Police Commissioner’s Police and Crime Plan.
The scheme, supported by North Wales Police and the North Wales Police and Community Trust (PACT), uses the ill-gotten gains of criminals to fund community groups.
According to the club, the upgraded facilities will give them the opportunity to get even more young people involved in the sport.
Mr Jones, a former police inspector, and North Wales Assistant Chief Constable Sacha Hatchett dropped in on a training session to see how the money had been spent.
Head coach Dan Andrews, 34, who works as a quantity surveyor, says the club’s ethos is to instil discipline and teaches young people to respect themselves as individuals as well as other people.
He said: “As a club we are open four evenings and two morning sessions a week. We run training and sparring sessions to members who are girls and boys from aged eight upwards as well as adult men and women.
We have boxers who compete at all levels as well as members who don’t want to compete but enjoy training and sparring.
The £2,500 grant from the Police and Crime Commissioner has been fantastic. Our old carpet was really threadbare and held together by tape. But we now new carpet tiles, which we laid ourselves, which has meant we have a fantastic training area.
We also had enough money left to buy skipping ropes of all sizes, a new punch bag and head guards. It really has made a big difference and we can’t thank the Police and Crime Commissioner and North Wales Police enough.”
Dan says Rhyl Boxing Club was founded more than 60 years ago, in 1958, by local boxing trainer Paddy Kenny.
He said: “Sadly, Paddy Kenny passed away some years ago but his great grandson, Owen Butters, is a club member who fights competitively and one of Paddy’s boxing pupils Mike Eccleston, is a coach here and has family members who are also members.
As a club we box all over Britain when we can. And although we have no champion boxers at the moment one of our former members, Jack Bodway, who left to pursue a military career, has just won the Army welter weight championship.”
Owen Butters, 17, said: “My aim is to fight at Welsh Championship level and as high an amateur level as I can before eventually turning pro.”
Luke Prescott, 17, of Rhyl, who knows, due to his medical condition, that he can’t fight competitively says training helps him manage his health.
He said: “I suffer from cystic fibrosis and have to take medication daily. It means that, because my lungs fill with mucus, I can’t fight competitively. However, what I can do is train hard and that has really helped me manage my condition.
I’m much better since I started boxing and the training, although hard, keeps me much more active. It’s been a massive help.”
Mr Jones said: “This is a fabulous community club and to see so many young people, boys and girls, working and training so hard is wonderful.
I have been impressed with how the club is organised and the facilities are fabulous. This is a club that is working to keep youngsters off the streets and instead give them a focus and a goal to work to. It’s about self-discipline and respect.
And it doesn’t matter whether club members want to compete or just enjoy keeping fit and working out there is something here for everyone. I can think of no better way of spending the ill-gotten gains seized from criminals than to put it back into a community such as Rhyl and to support a club such as this.”
It was a sentiment endorsed by Assistant Chief Constable Sacha Hatchett who added: “Club members are channelling their energies into a sport that teaches discipline and life skills. It’s an affordable sport and this club is giving young people an interest and a focus.
When club members are here parents know where their children are and that they are doing something worthwhile. We constantly hear of a lack of youth provision but clubs such as Rhyl Boxing Club proves that this isn’t always the case. This is a club that is making a difference.”