Suffolk Coastal Petanque Alliance
We are a 200-strong Petanque organisation based along the entire length of the Suffolk coastline and a far way inland as well, having been set up in 2007 starting with just 9 teams and now numbering over 30 teams in our Summer League and 25 in our current Winter League.
The organisation caters for players of all ages and abilities, with our youngest ever player being 6 years old at the time and our current elder members being into their 80’s. We are self-funding but have recently gained Regional Status from our governing body, Petanque England, having broken away from our old region Anglia, and becoming PE’s newest region.
Our debut as a region was made at the 2024 annual Inter Regional Championships, whereby having started in Division Two with 7 other regions, we gained 5th place overall and were only about 4 games away from getting promotion to Div One in our very first attempt, something that no other new region has ever achieved before.
We are the most progressive, forward-thinking and innovative region within PE and of our membership over 25% hold National Licences, with our players achieving great results and finishing positions at National Competitions as well as playing abroad internationally. Two of our players will be representing England at an international invite-only week long series of tournaments in Greece this coming June playing against high level teams from mainland Europe, North African countries and hopefully USA, New Zealand and Australia.
What we are expected to do now as an are with regional standing is to look to increase involvement of young persons in taking up the sport, inter-acting with groups and societies for vulnerable persons and generally engaging with the more general communities within our area. Currently our Youth Development Officer is undertaking a series of events for children up to the age of 18, teaching them the basics of the sport as well as the finer points of rules, tactics etc in a fun environment due school holiday periods.
The benefits we can give a potential partner would be coverage over our social media platforms, these being our website (soon to be split into two website, one for League/Alliance activities and one for our Regional events, News etc), our two current Facebook groups that we administer, obviously we will give the opportunity for our partners name and/or logo to be part of our team kit design. There are also the opportunities for some of our events and competitions to be listed as being sponsored by “xyz company”, with again all associated publicity to be designed to incorporate our partners details, logo, website address etc.
Significant elements of our community engagements can also be referenced with the partners name, so we will aim to really “go to town” on splashing partner branding all over everything we do. Even at competitions we can have signs, banners, posters, leaflets etc all detailing our partners information.
Target Audience
Our target audience for Petanque is unlimited really. We like to introduce children to the sport from around the age of between 6 to 8, as there is junior sized boule available and shortened versions of the game to help them understand basic rules, techniques etc and then it’s right up to the age of 80 and above, as we have current players beyond that age.
The sport is basically a true “sport for all” and you stop playing once you are no longer fit enough to play…whenever that might be in your life. The demographic of our sport tends to be the elder person, so in an ideal world our “target audience” would be the children and young adults, but basically anyone can be a potential candidate.
Key Dates and Timings
Ideally, we don’t want to keep looking for sponsorship every year, so would prefer a short-term arrangement of maybe THREE years initially and then review matters further upon completion of the 3 years.
So starting from our 2025 season, which is currently already underway as our Winter League started in October 2024 and completes by March 2025, we are looking for £2,000 per year, or if a 3 year deal can be agreed upon, then we would “discount” this to £5,000 for a 3 year term, to start with immediate effect and complete by the end of our Summer Season 2027.
Specific Opportunity Details
We have many events and opportunities for the potential sponsorship to cover.
For example we have over 12 individual all-day tournaments in a season, we have our Summer League consisting of 6 individual divisions, a Winter League consisting of 5 individual divisions, a Ladies League consisting of 4 divisions, a Triples League consisting of 5 divisions, Knock Out Cups and Plates within the Summer and Winter Leagues. Add to that we have an annual trip to Belgium & Holland where on average 30 of our players go for a 4 to 5 day trip and get to play at 3 separate venues, playing 10 to 12 games per person.
Social Media. – Facebook pages we have over 400 viewers across the two pages, with regards to our website, I do not have the stats available at this point in time.
In June 2025 we are planning an International Weekend where players from clubs we have played against in Belgium, Holland and Wales, will be heading to Woodbridge, Suffolk to play in our “Friendship Games 2025” against a large number of Suffolk Coastal players in an international challenge match on the Saturday followed by an Open Triples Event on the Sunday.
We would like to get a partner involved in any of our activities, because it’s an audience for them that they have never reached before, we have national and international exposure. One of our main events in 2025 involves two days of play for just Coastal players to take part in, but members of the Facebook page Petanque365 are coming to Suffolk to livestream matches at our event straight onto Facebook and YouTube audiences, something we are very excited about.
Features and Benefits
One of the main reasons we feel a partner should get involved, is that we aren’t looking for huge vast amounts of sponsorship, we are trying to be realistic and as we have already stated, most of our current activities are self-funded but our funds can only stretch so far and therefore we are just asking for a little bit of a hand.
At some point, if a partner can be found, we would love to invite them along to one of our showcase events so they can see exactly what we are about and the partner could be involved in the prize giving at the end of a days competition.
Other Partners
Currently we do not have any other brands on board.
Investment
As stated in a previous question, we are looking for £5,000 for a 3 year term, commencing immediately and ending at the completion of our Summer League 2027. This amount would be payable direct to our Alliance.
Other Info
We have a constitution that we abide by, a full Committee for both the Alliance and the Region (some members are on both Committees as there is a large part of cross-over), a Code of Conduct for our players, an annual Captains/Representatives Meeting for our Alliance and Committee Meetings/AGMs for our Region.
Those of us who hold Petanque England Licences having a level of insurance cover against damage and/or injury.
Our Regional matters are full reportable to our governing body, Petanque England.
This information is added in here to prove that we are not just a small informal group, but have regulations, guidelines, rules and procedures in place for everything we do.