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Dear <<Salutation>>,
I was lucky enough to be at the club on a sunny day recently when every facility was in use. Bowlers were enjoying the newly opened bowling green, all the tennis courts were in use for coaching and fours, rowers were enjoying the river, squash players were being coached and there was tea and cake available in the clubhouse! The grounds and pavilion looked fantastic in the sunshine – it was a great example of the benefit of participation at a members’ sports club.
Gary Shaw, our new Clubhouse Manager
I’m pleased to say we have a new member of staff to help you benefit from the club facilities. Gary Shaw has joined us as Clubhouse Manager after many years helping run Southam Cricket Club. Our previous Clubhouse Manager, Aaron Corsi, has now got a full time job with the council, but will still be helping us run great social events at the club.
We have changed the opening hours of the Clubhouse Café for the summer season. The café will now be closed on Tuesdays, but open longer on Saturday mornings and we will now have the bar open all of Saturday afternoon. I hope you will get a chance to use the café or bar after playing sport at the club this summer. If you have any enquiries about use of the pavilion, you can reach Gary by email to clubhouse.manager@warwickboatclub.co.uk or by calling the club office on 01926 407938.
Membership Packs Available at the Club
I’m pleased to say that most members have paid their fees to renew their membership of the club. If you opted to pay by direct debit, I’m pleased to announce that we have a new, cheaper and more flexible direct debit scheme detailed below. We will ask you to complete a new online direct debit mandate in the next few weeks before we issue your membership pack.
If you have paid already by cheque or Internet banking, you can now collect your membership pack from the office, (Monday to Thursday 10am to 2pm), from the café (all day Monday or Thursday, Friday & Saturday mornings), or from the bar (six evenings a week). The membership pack contains your new membership card. Please sign your membership card when you receive it. This is your personal card for years to come. This card, rather than a code, will be used to gain access to the pavilion. We will initially enable the cards on the front doors of the pavilion alongside the existing code so you can practice using the new card. Once all the membership packs have been distributed, we will remove the old code so the use of the card will become compulsory. The benefits of the card system are that we can maintain greater security of the pavilion, we can offer more flexible types of membership and can prohibit access at any time to any member who does not pay their fee.
Keep your existing car park card!
Note that the new membership access card does not replace the existing car park access card. If you have one, please continue to use your existing card for access to the car park. This means you can keep the white car park access card in your car and carry the new blue membership card with you to enter the pavilion. If you use the car park, please remember the rules – do not enter the drive if there is another car using it or if the red light is on indicating the car park is full.
If you have registered a car and paid the fee, your membership pack will also include your new car park permit. Only cars with the current permit displayed clearly in the windscreen may use the car park. Please do not use the drive if your car weighs more than 1.8 tonnes – this is against the club’s rules. Unfortunately, members driving larger cars have sometimes hit the bollards protecting the houses at the top of the drive. These bollards are now loose and we will need to replace them at the club’s expense in the coming weeks.
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New, Lower Cost Direct Debit Membership Option
If you chose to pay your membership by direct debit, you will find our new direct debit scheme cheaper and easier to use. You will shortly receive an email inviting you to set up a direct debit for Warwick Boat Club using our new service provider called "GoCardless". The entire process can be completed online in a couple of minutes. Please complete this mandate even if you used our previous direct debit scheme so you can benefit from the lower fees. The mandate will be covered by the Direct Debit Guarantee, ensuring you the right to cancel the direct debit and an immediate refund of any incorrect debits. However, please note that whichever way you choose to pay, you are committing to the full annual fee applicable for your class of membership. If you cancel the direct debit mandate mid-year, we will invoice you for the outstanding balance. This approach is to ensure all members contribute to the financial strength of the club. Remember, as a members’ club, we have no external financial backing, no shareholders and do not distribute any profits. All of our resources are used to improve the club with priority given to sporting facilities.
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Tennis Floodlights
I’m pleased to say that, after an extensive review and commercial negotiation, we have selected the supplier for the new floodlights for tennis courts 1,2 and 6. This major investment in our sporting facilities will mean more capacity for our members, a closer connection between our sporting facilities and the pavilion and the chance for our top standard matches to be played in front of spectators near the club. After careful evaluation, we have chosen to install floodlights with metal halide bulbs, the same as used on the other courts. The capital cost of LED floodlights is currently about double that of metal halide bulbs and provide a very slow payback through energy savings as the floodlights are only used for a few hours per day. We expect to install the new floodlights in August or September with minimum disruption to members. We will monitor the cost of LED floodlights in years to come to determine when the lower running costs warrant new capital expenditure.
Elsewhere, we are continuing to invest in our sporting facilities. The Rowers have a new mobile boat rack to make better use of the storage space in the boat sheds. We have also just approved the purchase of a launch to improve our coaching and safety capacity on the river. We have repaired the mower used on the bowling green and are replacing the broken sprinkler heads so the green can be automatically watered. Anybody who has been surprised by the somewhat approximate direction control of the twenty-year old sprinkler heads will no doubt appreciate the investment! Finally, after much work and consultation with the manufacturers, we have finally got the squash heating system working pretty much as required. We will continue to monitor this system as the next winter season starts. We can also now show coverage of one of the squash courts on the TV in the pavilion. This is a way to bring great squash into the club. Watch out for coverage on Friday 3rd July, when we have two top UK squash professionals playing an exhibition match. You can pay £5 to "Play a Pro" but attendance as a spectator is free either in the squash courts, or via the TV link in the club house.
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Towan Kosted
I would like to take a moment to reflect on the saddest recent news at the club; the sudden death of one of our members, Towan Kosted, at the age of 37. Although you may not have known him personally, and I did not, you would quite likely be familiar with his cheery smile and ready conversation. Always happy to contribute, whether on court or in the clubhouse, Towan was a great example of how a positive attitude affects more than your immediate circle of friends. Towan made Warwick Boat Club a brighter place and I hope we can use his memory to ensure we all make time for others.
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Bo Club, Sierra Leone
I’ve mentioned in the past our project to help a Tennis and Squash club in Bo, Sierra Leone re-establish activity after the Ebola Virus epidemic. I’m pleased to report I’ve now met one of the members, a German aid worker who visited the UK on the way back to Bo. We have agreed that the club in Bo must be properly established in order for a club twinning to work and so it is clear who is involved. The players in Bo have recently held their first meeting (pictured above) to establish a new constitution for the club. We have offered to help with guidance from our experience of running a members’ club and are looking forward to hearing about their progress.
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Forthcoming Events
We will be holding an open evening on Wednesday 17th June. This is a chance for you to invite your friends to visit and consider joining the club. For each member you introduce who joins the club, you can claim £20 in vouchers to spend at the bar or cafe. We will be showing the FA Cup live on Saturday afternoon and next week we have The Brophy Trophy - the annual inter-section Bowls match.
I hope you enjoy the summer season at Warwick Boat Club. With the warmer weather, it is a great time to enjoy the club, whether for sport or for a drink and BBQ by the river. Your participation in our activities, for fun or competition, at the highest level or as a complete novice is what makes our club thrive.
If you ever have any concerns about the club, please do catch me at the pavilion or send me an email.
Cheers
James Alty
Club Captain, Warwick Boat Club
captain@warwickboatclub.co.uk
PS
Please remember to collect your membership pack including your new membership card next time you are in the club. If you would prefer your pack to be posted to you, please email admin@warwickboatclub.co.uk confirming your current address.
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