About Us
About Us
The development Underhill Park completed so far has been made possible through the hard work of volunteer Trustees of Mumbles Community Association over many years. It has been a long journey to get to this point but now Phase 1 is complete, the operation is being delivered for MCA by Underhill Management Company Ltd.
Now that the facilities are open, we have a team of dedicated staff working hard in the café and on our sports and community activities to make the new Underhill Hub a success for everyone.
There is still more we want to do, so MCA is still raising money to be able to deliver a range of enhancements to the Park.
Find out more about us, the journey we have been on, how you can continue to support Go Underhill and how you can get involved…
About Our Team
MCA, UMC & Go Underhill
Developing Underhill Park
Volunteering
Support Go Underhill
Memorial Benches
About Our Team
With the new Underhill Hub now open, we now have a small team of dedicated staff helping to shape and deliver an operation, the services and activities which meet the needs of our community.
Say hello to three of the key team members who you can contact if you have a specific query… and do say hello if you see them around the Hub and the Park, they’re a friendly lot!
Douglas Johnson
Underhill Development Manager
Doug is in charge of our whole operation, with a specific focus on sports & community activities. Get in touch with Doug if you want to ask about our sports facilities, activities in the Hub or to book our meeting room.
Natalie Williams
Café Manager
Natalie runs the kitchen and the café team. She oversees all the catering on offer in the Hub and through our ‘Hatch’ service. Get in touch with Nat if you have any comments on our food & drink offer.
Keiran Ivett
Events & Marketing Manager
Whatever special event you want to hold in Underhill Hub, Keiran is the person to speak to. Keiran also looks after advertising and promotion, so if you’re a company that would like a presence in the Hub, get in touch.
Job Opportunities
When we have opportunities for people to join our team of staff, these will be posted on a link here.
We also post information on our Instagram and Facebook accounts, so do keep an eye on those if you’re interested.
If you’re really keen, feel free to send us your CV and a cover letter saying why you would like to be part of Go Underhill.
Volunteering at Underhill
Volunteers are at the heart of making Underhill Hub and Park a success, so we’d love more people to come forward and play a part.
Whilst we will want to accept everyone, at the moment we are unable to have volunteers who are under 16 years of age. This is linked to safeguarding and the need for under 16’s to be accompanied, but we are planning for how this can be done in future.
Why not consider offering some of your time to volunteer by joining one of the three teams we are setting up
♦ Hub Café Team
♦ Maintenance Team
♦ Green Team
We’ve already got a great Green Team together, but we always welcome more!
To help us, we have a Special Adviser for Volunteering, Helen Gough.
An experienced volunteer herself, Helen is your first point of contact if you want to find out more about what is involved and what we can offer.
Please email Helen if you have time to give and would like to be part of the Go Underhill family.
MCA, UMC Ltd and Go Underhill
The way in which Underhill has been developed and is now being operated is in the most cost efficient way we could find to achieve what was needed. But we know it can be a bit confusing, so we wanted to explain how it all fits together!
Registered as a charity in 2015, Mumbles Community Association (MCA) was set up with the specific purpose of developing the facilities in Underhill Park, protecting and securing this fantastic asset as a community resource for local people.
The park and the new facilities at the Underhill Hub are being managed on behalf of MCA by Underhill Management Company Limited (UMC), which has been specifically set up for this purpose. This has been done to ensure best use of resources for the community. UMC is wholly owned by the charity and any profit generated by the limited company will go to MCA to be spent on maintaining and improving Underhill for the community.
UMC is a company registered in England & Wales, Company number 13452240
Go Underhill is the umbrella brand which covers the development and protection of the park by MCA and the management of the park and facilities by UMC.
So hopefully that makes it a bit clearer, but if you have any questions, please do get in touch.
Working with Swansea Council
Swansea Council is giving MCA a 125-year lease on Underhill Park, so that we can manage and develop it for the community. But the children’s play area has been specifically excluded from the agreement, which remains the responsibility of Swansea Council. This is so that the maintenance and checking of the play equipment can be undertaken by their experienced team as part of their schedule for checking all play areas.
If you need to report any issues with the play area, please do so by contacting Swansea Council.
Support Go Underhill
There is lots still to be done in the park to truly make it the best it can be, so we still need your support if you want this.
Donating to the charity
We will need to continue to raise funding for on-going developments, some of which we would hope to use as match funding to grant bids. Whether you are a business looking for profile or an individual willing to give something to help, please do so. You can find out more about making a donation here.
Using the facilities and engaging with us
Underhill will be a success if we are providing what the community want and doing it well. So please make use of what is now on offer and let us know what you think of our operation or what you would like to see happening in the Hub and Park. In this way, the new Underhill Hub and park facilities will be truly driven by you. Share your thoughts with us.
Developing Underhill Park
It’s quite shocking to look back at pictures of the old Pavilion and the changing facilities which used to be all that was available for sports teams and other visitors to Underhill Park. How on earth did we put up with it for so long?!
Below are just a few pictures from the amazing journey we went on to build the new facilities, and you can look back on the progress by month here.
It’s truly been a team effort. The agreement between the two resident clubs Mumbles Rangers Football Club and Mumbles Rugby Club to work together for better facilities for the wider community as well as themselves provided the foundation for our success.
Support for the idea from Swansea Council and the huge commitment by Mumbles Community Council to use their funding to support new facilities for local people has been vital.
But we wouldn’t have got anywhere without the organisations, businesses and individuals who awarded us grants or donated money. You can read about those who have funded Underhill Hub and our All-Weather Pitch on our Home page, or get more detail on who has given money here.
And we know there is still more to do…
As well as the return of Cricket to Underhill, the immediate focus is on improvements to the walkways and car parking, and we are supporting Swansea Council’s plans to introduce a safer cycleway through Underhill.
In the longer term, we are fully aware of the huge demand for a gym facility in the Mumbles area and will be considering whether this is something we could deliver, possibly in partnership with the private sector.
And we’re always open to ideas and will continue to listen to our community to ensure that we do is based on your needs and wants.
Memorial Benches
We know that people sometimes like to pay for a bench seat where they can sit and reflect on their loved one and which celebrates their life and link with Underhill.
We have a policy in place which allows for this, with two different bench seats styles to choose from, one traditional as shown in the image, and one made from recycled plastic in the same material as the picnic benches located outside the Hub.
If you would like to have a bench in memory of your loved one, then please get in touch and we can share the details and costs with you.