Club Developments

As you will have seen it's been a very busy 6 months in the future developments of the club facilities - there's plenty more to do, but rather than tell people as they ask, but here's the story so far:

Roof: The new roof project is now complete and we're finally watertight again! The loss of the water feature adjacent the bar is a miss but the future is a bit more secure (and dry!) and we can now move ahead with the rest of the club development.

Toilets: The complete refurbishment of the toilets is finished: We have increased capacity, new fixtures, new heating system - it's a huge improvement and has been highly commended by many of our regular visitors who were used to our antiquated facilities.

New bar: The new bar and new club room have started to move forward - hopefully this will come together over the next couple of months.

Function room: The new curtains are being altered at present. There will be no further alterations here before the end of the season.

Kitchen area: There are plans to increase the size of the kitchens in order to deal with the increase in match day catering required.

Gym: There are new showers as well as alterations to the ladies changing rooms. We are looking at a new floor for the gents changing rooms. Longer term we want to look at an extension to both the gym and the aerobic studios.

Changing rooms: We know there are issues with showers - please bear with us while we go through all the options, this is likely to be a high cost project and, with everything else that's on the go, may take a while to get fully sorted.

Pitches: We are looking at the drainage of the pitches - the new 2nd & 3rd pitches are still bedding in but it is thought that the drainage capacity needs doubling! The 1st team pitch requires full draining and we are looking at both specifications and funding issues. In order to protect the 1st team pitch it is now out of bounds for warm-ups as well as training - please keep off unless you're involved in a game that is being played on there!!

Windmill: 100% funding has now been gained, it's underway and hopefully it will be functional for the middle of March. This will both reduce our energy costs as well as see us gain an income.

All weather pitch: A lot of the funding is now in place and we are grateful for the enormous effort put in by Dave Morewood in securing it as well as driving the project forwards. There are no absolutes BUT we are hopeful that we might see action THIS YEAR (touch every bit of wood you see!) - as well as a major boost to the facilities for the club and the town this project would see us gain another income stream to drive the club forward.

As other issues come up we'll keep you posted through this column.

Richard Mattinson

See Plans of New Club Layout:

Black & White

Colour