Dear Member,
CLUBHOUSE DEVELO
I last wrote to you early in the
New Year and as a number of things have moved on since then I thought I’d put
pen to paper once more to bring you all up to speed.
The first, and most significant,
thing that has happened since my last note is that the Planning Application has
been submitted. The lead time for a decision from WWDC Southern area Planning
Committee is six weeks, which means that we should be given the go-ahead, or
not, by 17th March. Along the way, there is a Warminster Town
Council meeting of the Planning Committee on Monday 11th February,
where our plans will be discussed. We will be represented there by our Project
Committee to ensure our case is heard.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes
work has continued apace. A separate bank account has been opened and
negotiations are on-going with the Charity Commission to obtain Charitable
Status. Work on the costing detail for external shell has been completed in
outline and we are now moving towards the fund-raising phase in earnest.
We have been admirably supported
already by some external fund-raising events, notably at the Anchor, who held a
race night on our behalf raising £604, and also Mary Stewart (the mother of 4
erstwhile wearers of the Amber and Blue jersey), who held a Bingo Night in the
United Services Club raising £610. More
events are planned at the Anchor, so please look out for them and support them
if you can.
From an internal perspective,
there are a number of events planned to raise the funds required to make a good
start on the building (on March 18TH hopefully) which will then give
us the leeway to raise the remaining funds to complete the build. Early
indications show that we will require £47,000 to put up the shell, although
this is a top end estimate, with maybe a further £40,000 plus to kit out the
inside to a usable standard. It is well worth noting though that the total cost
of the shell, including labour, is over £170,000.
The aim will be to get as close
to the initial £47,000 as possible utilising local fund-raising capacity
(events, sponsors, donations etc), whilst simultaneously preparing an
application for granted funding as an umbrella for the ‘latter’ part of the
project. This method will allow us to begin work and reach a meaningful level
through our own devices. Granted funding would not be on the table for some
time to come and the level of funding through this medium may not be as much as
we want, there are no guarantees, so we have to be as robust and committed as
we can to making a real dent in the funding requirement ourselves.
To this end I would ask you all
to support in the fullest way possible
any event that is organised by the Club. There are three ‘big ones’ on the
horizon. On March 1st the seniors are embarking on a sponsored 3
Legged Fancy Dress pub crawl, which should raise £5,000. If you know a member
of the senior squad, please sponsor them, you know what it’s for. In parallel,
A ‘Buy a Brick’ scheme is about to be launched, which again we are looking to
raise a further £5,000, so yet again,
please support this and buy a few bricks each, or even ten or twenty if you
can, as and when you see the stall or bucket!! After this, on March 31st , there is the Mini’s Festival, where we
hope to make a killing on the tea, coffee and BBQ front. Please feel free to go
along to what is a highly entertaining morning and gorge yourself on burgers
and bacon sandwiches, washed down by cups of coffee and tea!
We also have a number of offers
of sponsorship and donation waiting in the wings, but there is always room for
more. If anyone knows of any business or individuals who would like to help in
our pursuit of our shopping list of raw materials, the majority of which we
will be able to get at cost through Sydenhams, then
please get it touch with our fund-raising committee (Glenn Marden – 01985
217011 or Tom Maddocks 07863 184813).
To finish, I believe it is about
time that we got the membership together to brief them fully about our current
position, advise on progress and issues, and to let
all know where we are going next and how we are going to get there. To that end
I would like to invite you all to a meeting in the Old Bell Function Room at
7.45pm on Thursday 28th February 2008. I hope you can all be there.
I will write again soon.
Chris Bell
Chairman