As many of you should know by now, Bangor's elevation to Senior status, like many other clubs playing at this level, has had the unfortunate but foreseeable knock-on effect of increased financial pressure. While prudent club management and well-attended social events have gone a long way towards meeting this challenge, there is very little left, if anything, at the end of the year to put towards much-needed capital projects that will benefit not only everyone in the club from minis to senior rugby and cricket, but also the wider Bangor community who use our facilities.

OK, by now you will probably have worked out that the purpose of this email is to ask for your help in addressing this particular issue. However, don't worry - you're not being asked to put your hand in your pocket! In fact, we need you to take your hands out of your pockets and simply cast some online votes for the club's project plan that has been submitted with the Aviva Community Fund, details of which can be found at https://community-fund.aviva.co.uk/voting/project/view/17-5154

The process should take about 3 minutes to complete and can be done at any time, day or night. In fact, why not do it right now after reading this email?

To help you through the process, here is a step-by-step guide:

Go to http://www.community-fund.aviva.co.uk/
Scroll down to ‘search project titles and organisations’ and put in ‘Bangor Rugby Football & Cricket Club’, then hit the search button.
Click on our picture
Where it says ‘this project has xx votes’ click on ‘register and log in’
Scroll down to ‘not registered’ section and click ‘register now’
Enter your details and click ‘finish’
Aviva will send you a confirmation email in 30 seconds. Go onto your email and click the link within the email ‘confirm your email address’
Complete ‘step 3’ and hit ‘complete details’
This takes you back to the ‘search project titles’ page. Again enter ‘Bangor Rugby Football & Cricket Club’ and hit enter again.
LAST STEP – Scroll down to ‘cast your 10 votes’ and then hit ‘submit votes’. (NB - make sure you give all your 10 votes for Bangor Rugby Club - use the slider to move from 1 to 10)
Get as many people as you know to do this, the more votes we get the more chance we have to get the funding and improve our facilities in the club house!

There are plenty of other clubs around the country looking for a share in this fund, so it's vital that ALL of our members and friends not only get behind this themselves, but also encourage their families and work colleagues to add their support as well. In true Northern Ireland voting parlance, the call is to "vote early and vote often"!

You may find times when the Aviva website is busy and cannot process your votes. Don't give up! You have until the 21st November 2017 to cast your votes, so keep trying until you succeed. You may also be able to get through by going onto the normal Aviva website at www.aviva.co.uk, register as a new customer, then go to the Home icon. This will bring up a list of services, including the Community Fund. Click on it from here and you should get through.

We are an ambitious club, with big plans to develop into something even better than we are already - BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP! Please view this as a simple opportunity to do something good for the club, at no cost to yourselves, save for a few minutes of your time. You know it makes sense.