In the past year we have had some setbacks and faced a lot of hard work on submitting all sorts of applications. We have actually got pretty good at it and at last it all seems to be coming together.

1. Initial design, project costs and funders

As you all know, we gained planning permission for the original design back in November 2009. we then needed to forge ahead to firm up funders since none would support a building project unless it had planning permission. we needed to firm up costs and secure funding and it soon became clear that original cost estimates given to us were too low and that potential funders were not all there. Our original Project cost totalled £1.6 million (new Club house + re-carpeting of the synthetic pitch inc professional fees, VAT etc). We scaled back the size from 1000 sq. m to around 700 sq.m and have a reduced total project cost of £1.2 million. Our only option was to re-design a scaled down building so that build costs would be lesser and match this to anticipated funding. This was a bit of a scramble in June and July but we made it and in the July meeting of the Planning Committee our scaled down plans were approved. For those of you who have not seen these, copies of them will be on display in the Club House very soon.

2. Revised Design

We have revised the design to our minimum user requirement of 6 changing rooms. This caters for summer use of up to 2 games of cricket plus possibly one game of hockey and for the winter of 1 game of rugby plus the change over from a ladies to mens hockey game which requires 4 separate changing rooms. Overall , we are very pleased with the design and of course it was run past Sport England and the ECB. Please have a look. Upstairs we have a forward bar / social area with an outdoor viewing area. we also retain a smaller tea / social / seminar room at the rear with a clear viewing area over the synthetic pitch.

3. Funding

This is all moving along rapidly. The great news is that Sport England have not only approved our application for the Hub Club monies we originally identified 4 years ago BUT have actually added a bit more money because they believe this to be an excellent Project. Their funding includes provision of a dedicated Sports Development Officer to work from the new club house on behalf of the member sections and to support sports development in the community.

A corner stone of the whole concept is the involvement of the Wilton Estate. This has been a long and hard negotiation that is not complete but we hope it will be by the end of September. The Estate remains committed to the Project .

We have done a lot of work in getting the local MP on board and, with the help of local Councillors and the long term help from Council staff, we have managed to get the support of Wiltshire Council in going back to apply for funding through the Area Board for monies Wiltshire Council was granted as “Performance Reward Grant”. This application is about to go in and we hope it will meet part of the funding gap we face.

The ECB have confirmed their support but we still need to complete a final application process with them. This is in hand but must be done quickly since the ECB (and Sport England) require us to have all our funding in place by end September 2010. This is a challenge, but we have become good at challenges.

England Hockey rejected our application for funding from their Capital Investment Programme. We have asked for feedback but got none. We have since applied to the National Hockey Foundation and remain hopefully of gaining some monies there.

The original funding from what was Salisbury District Council remain secure. This brings us to a huge supporter that is in fact the Club itself. over the past 10 years we have all worked at this – small events, bigger events and very definitely some still to come. One way or another the Sports Club will contribute at least £220,000 of its own money and this has been a significant factor in all our applications – we demonstrate clearly that we have made our own efforts and are not expecting something for nothing. This has been a magnificent effort and all our contributors will be duly recognised permanently in the new building.

Until all Funders are firmed up we cannot be sure what our “funding gap” is, but there will be one and we must keep going. We urge all member sections to again set targets for each team to raise more monies however they best can. We are looking at further Club-wide events and we need to pull in as much money as we can from our own efforts – this will make a big difference in the final building.

4. Project Management and the Way Ahead

Your committee have taken the plunge and appointed professionals to manage the first phase of the project ; to finalise plans and prepare a tender for the actual build. Given the time constraints put upon us by certain funders, we had no other choice since certain monies granted now MUST be spent on construction by the end of the current financial year.

This adds to the pressure but if we are successful in firming up the funding then we are assured construction will start in 2011 with a completed building later that year.

This has been a long slog and no doubt at many times most members will have wondered what was going on and why there was no new building yet in sight. Please remember that those on the Committee are also just members with jobs and families and this whole process has been far from simple. It has been a superb team effort involving all member sections and a huge part of the membership at various times. We must keep going that bit more and really deliver a most worthy final Project.

Dave Parry gave a speech on the day and the event saw a fundraising amount of £1350 towards the Hub Club project.

Photos of this event are available to view at www.journalphotos.co.uk under code DB 7976.

WEDNESDAY 19^TH MAY 2010 AT HIGH POST GC

AUCTION ITEMS

Please note these auction items are not exclusive to the players of the Golf Day. Anyone wishing to attend specifically to bid is quite welcome to and anyone wishing for more details on an item or to put in an early bid please contact Robert Wade on 07799-627861 or at robert.wade@sport4salisbury.com

We are looking for people to help organise a huge Summer Ball Bash – this would be an amazing event for the club but it cannot happen without some volunteers. If you want this event and you can help out please contact me – Natalie Hind – at natsy_17@yahoo.co.uk

Thank you!

Any ideas for fundraising are welcome. It would be better to fund raise outside of the existing membership, because we members will be having to provide money anyway! An idea for fundraising would be to host an event and charge a fee, such as: a jumble sale, a fete or a bingo evening. Other ideas could be a sport or beer festival, a golf day, a coffee morning, a bring and buy sale, car boot sale, a sponsored event such as hair shaving or parachuting, a swear box, a summer ball, a wine tasting, a barbecue, a concert, a quiz night, a raffle, a skittles event, a 100 club (or thousand club), or just ask people to donate (such as other clubs played against), etc etc

If there is anyone out there who might be willing to consider being a fundraising coordinator, please do not hesitate to contact a committee member or Peter Curtis himself.