A Telford social club that almost disappeared, an incredible gesture that saved it - and the locals keeping it alive

The club occupies an unassuming building off King Street which was opened in 1911 to serve the former mining town, and took on several guises over the next half-century before being acquired by the local council, which turned it over to the people of Dawley as a social and community space in the 1960s.

Fast-forward to 2014 and the club, which had grown to around 600 members, was able to buy the building from Telford & Wrekin Council after the club committee had organised sufficiently to make the club viable - while respecting a restrictive covenant dating back to 1928 which requires the land to be used "for the benefit of the inhabitants of the District [of Dawley] in perpetuity".

Several prosperous years followed the takeover as the club found a modern place for itself in the Dawley community, before the Covid-19 pandemic forced the committee to close the doors and the subsequent cost of living crisis hit club coffers hard.

Long months with the doors closed and bills mounting up took their toll. Even once the club was finally able to reopen, running costs continued to soar, and the small committee realised they would need help from the community they had been serving for so long if they were to survive.

In late 2023, a former civil servant would join as secretary with the daunting task of helping to keep the club afloat, and turned to very modern methods.

"I only came into the club as someone who would be a normal club user," Vicky Dodson explains. "I was co-opted as a member of the committee in 2023. We didn't know where to go, what to do, what can we do.

"At the AGM I became the secretary - I retired from the civil service so I have got some organisational skills. I said 'I might be able to help, I will have a look'.

"I went to the first meeting and it was 'we've got no money!'."

The committee launched an online fundraiser asking for help from the public to tackle the "immediate financial crisis" the club was facing, appealing to the kindness of folk in Dawley and further beyond for help to reach an initial £5,000 target to "save this valuable safe space for the people of Dawley and their families, and achieve our end goal of an upbeat establishment for those young, old and in between".

Vicky admitted to having no idea what impact the fundraiser would have, if any - but before long, after a few donations from kind members of the public, they were hit by a bolt from the blue.

"I put the GoFundMe out... we had an Extraordinary General Meeting that week and Dave Phillips, our bar steward at the time who has since retired, said that David Wilson Homes had contacted him and they were going to have a look at how they could help."

David Wilson and Barratt Homes could in fact help a lot - the developers volunteered to pay the entire £5,000 to smash the GoFundMe target in one fell swoop and allow the club's committee to get things back on an even keel so they could begin planning for a brighter future.

Dave said at the time: “Although we managed to get through the pandemic, we were practically broke. Running costs have soared for households and businesses alike.

“The committee and the dedicated staff have been working hard to look for ways to better manage the space and business, implementing changes and events that will start to make a difference going forward. However, recently we had run out of funds to keep this massive effort going, and required £5,000 to keep the club from closure.

“We can’t thank Barratt and David Wilson Homes enough for this generous donation – with this funding, we have valuable breathing space to continue looking for new sources of income and continue supporting our local community here in Dawley.