Stephen Widdison EGM Presentation Notes (Read in conjunction with - PDF document

Stephen Widdison EGM Presentation Notes (Read in conjunction with slides) Slide No.1 Firstly a very big welcome to everyone, and it is absolutely right that there should be such a great turn out tonight, as Nigel has said to make a decision on what is without doubt, a Project that will shape the Club’s future and therefore in due course create its history. It is without doubt my pleasure and honour to make this presentation to you tonight. So, without further adue, we will commence. 2 Starting very simply as you look at the building from the outside. It will simply look very much like a bigger version of what we have now. I’ll talk more on the design and planning later on, but basically, we are adding around 200 square metres to the foot print of the building. 3 Tonight you will get me talking you through the key aspects of the Expansion Proposal that has been on general distribution for the last month. I cannot go in to the level of detail that the written document does, otherwise it would be a long, very long, night. I am assuming that everyone can see either the screen or a printed version of the slides, it is not my intention to read what is on every slide, just add a bit of background in some cases and put in context in others. 4 A small team under the direction of the Management Committee have been working on the Project, and therefore tonight’s proposal, for well over a year.

I will give more detail of that work as I talk through the following slides. As I have said, I will not repeat what you can see on the slides, just refer to them, clarify them and, where I think necessary, amplify them. Given the number of people in the room, I will work my way through the presentation in the order on this slide, which as you can see, gives you the chance to ask questions at the end before you will be asked to vote. 5 It was important early on to ensure we had the full support of the Parish Council, who, for those that don’t know, are our landlords. I did make a presentation to the Parish Council AGM last year, which I know a few of you attended, and our plans were well received. Firstly, it was important that the Parish Council agreed what we propose fitted in with their vision for the Club and there was nothing in our plans that went against their wider view and their vision for the villages of Collingham & Linton. Secondly, the extension needed the Parish Council to agree to lease us the additional land we required to build on. I am pleased to advise that the Council, have fully supported us along the way and shown that support by agreeing to add the land for the extension, to our lease, without any change to the rent we pay. We have obtained the necessary planning approval for the extension, and after a lift to enabled disabled access to the first floor was added to the scope of the Project, three weeks ago we secured an additional approval to extend the building by a further two metres to incorporate the lift. I am frequently asked “surely we should be able to get a grant for part of the work”. The simple answer is the chances of obtaining a grant are slim. So far I have applied for two large grants of £140k and £36k and several smaller grants in £500 to £1,000 range. In the last five years the grant situation has moved on, we are not inner city, we are not regeneration and we are not catering for a disadvantaged group, so quite simply I was delighted when Sport

England declined the £140k grant ….. But said they would consider an application for £50k. I know there have been a lot of comments about the costs, the risks of going over budget and the level of contingency in the budget. With the help primarily of Matt Fergusson, and using his significant number of contacts in the building industry, since the AGM in November we have been able to spend a lot of time talking to a small group of specialists (i.e. architects, quantity surveyor and builders) to give us a high degree of confidence with the figures. A couple of you here have asked for the detailed costings provided by the quantity surveyor and they have stood the test of scrutiny when examined by those people. Since early in the Project we have been discussing the gym in all of its aspects with a range of people. This includes Harrogate Squash & Fitness Club which operates a similar model of 4 courts, a gym and a multifunction room. A thankyou to James the General Manager there who has given me unqualified access to all their management information, both numbers and pounds value. Matt and Gemma Fergusson have also enabled me to access a few gyms in and around this area and a bit further afield to be able to put with confidence some of the detail in to this Proposal. 6 I think there is now a fairly good level of knowledge about what is being proposed, but for the sake of clarity I will run through it again now. 1. A gym. A gym that will be 135 square metres in size. In the Proposal there is an artist’s impression of what it could look like inside. The size is correct, the finishings and equipment are to be finalised. The end result will be a top quality gym with a good cross selection of equipment with round and about 20 exercise stations. 2. The fourth squash court is in the great scheme of things reasonably straight forward. It will be a glass back with a small amount of seating downstairs and a viewing gallery upstairs. 3. The multifunction room will be exactly that. It will have the ability to provide fit-for-purpose facilities for a range of activities, including; fitness classes, parties, meetings of clubs and societies and because of the good specification of audio visual equipment provide a perfect place to watch televised sporting events.

4. Early in the Project it was decided that if the new sport and fitness facilities were to be provided, then gutting out the existing changing rooms and showers was a must. Again answering questions that have been asked, all four changing rooms will be larger in area than they are now. In addition for male squash and racketball, and gym users, there will be more ready access to a second changing room when there are no cricket players in action. There have been questions over the size of the changing rooms. I can tell you that Ladies goes from 11 to 15 square metres. Gents from 14.6 to 16.6 and cricket away from 16 to 17. The fourth changing room, used by cricket at cricket time, albeit in a different place, remains the largest at over 20 square metres, but bearing in mind its poor layout at present it will feel significantly bigger. The sizes all exclude shower space. 7 So to recap the Project: 1. New facilities. 2. Upgrading existing facilities. This includes removal of asbestos from the downstairs area. It is adding £71k to the costs of the project and this should not be overlooked in the contexts of the overall cost of the Project, the payback period and solving a costly problem that would need to be addressed at some time in the future. 3. This third point is important. Whilst the original proposal did not include or require disabled facilities, the Management Committee believe now is the ideal time to add in a disabled toilet and a lift suitable for disabled person use. The reality is that these facilities are adding approximately £50k to the costs of the Project. As with the point above this should not be overlooked in the contexts of the overall cost of the Project, the payback period and it solving a costly problem that would need to be addressed at some time in the future. 4. I appreciate that to many the structure and internal workings of CALSA is a mystery, a mystery complicated enough to be