During the past few years the Club has been successfully developed in accordance with the Club Development Plan and we now have a much increased involvement in training for both, adults (Try Sail and RYA courses) and Juniors (Junior Sailing School and summer sailing events). We also have an increasing involvement with other community sports and social groups e.g. Scouts and Metropolitan Police.
These developments have been of great benefit to the Club in introducing new members, allowing us to access funding previously unavailable to us (grants for the Visions for example), updating our boats and other equipment and providing new and increased revenue streams that contribute significantly to keeping our membership and berthing fees for all members at a reasonable price. However, all this increased activity has also inevitably led to greater demands on both the membership and our facilities. The membership has responded magnificently but we are now faced with an increasingly urgent need to update and improve the clubhouse, to meet both our current needs and our aspirations for the future.
IBRSC has always had a strong principal of self help and self reliance at its core and the current clubhouse was originally planned and constructed largely by the membership. Times change however and whilst that principal of self reliance will remain a core value for the club we have to accept that, 40 years on, the amount of time that our members are able to give to a major project, and the increased regulatory compliances required make it unfeasible for us to undertake the necessary major improvements without recourse to a considerable element of professional assistance. This will of course cost money but our Club Development Programme with its emphasis on training and sport for all now puts us in a position where significant grant aid may be available to help us.
With this in mind a sub committee was set up earlier this year to both investigate what grant aid might be available and to formulate proposals for upgrading the clubhouse based on the perceived demands of the various activities now undertaken by the Club. Consideration of these demands has led to a proposal that incorporates the following elements:
·Additional storage below the clubhouse to allow us to store all the assorted paraphernalia associated with our increased fleet of club boats and our training programmes.
·Creation of a dedicated training room in place of the existing committee room and part of the existing kitchen so that any conflict between the needs of training courses and the regular operation of the Club can be avoided.
·Re arrangement of the back of house area (kitchen and bar) to maximise efficient use of space and improve the facilities.
·Creation of a new servery for food and non alcoholic drinks.
·Creation of a new bar.
·Reconfiguration of the current "dry" area to make it more comfortable and more clearly defined from the general clubhouse area thus hopefully encouraging greater social use of the facilities.
·Removal of the plethora of signage and redundant equipment from the clubhouse walls.
·Redecoration.
·Replacement furniture.
These elements have now been pulled together in a proposal which has been drawn up in scheme form by Mike Jones and which has received the approval of the Club's General Committee. These plans can be viewed at the clubhouse and in this gallery (click on any of the white boxes below to open up a slideshow of images)
or, if you'd like to have more detailed pdfs that you can print out, click on the links below:
We'd like to obtain the membership's response to these proposals before finalising the scheme and moving forward with both the project planning and the grant application process. The grant application needs to be completed by mid December but there is a great deal to be done before that date not least of which is carefully considering each element to make it affordable. We would welcome all comments but do need to complete the initial consultation process by the middle of October to allow a final scheme for approval and grant submission before the deadline.
Please tell us your thoughts - tell any committee member, but in particular the Clubhouse Committee - Gareth Griffiths, Roy Poole, Mike Jones and Mike Curtis. If you have any questions or suggestions please tell us. There are of course more things we would like to do in the future, but we have aimed to keep this phase to be within the possibility of a Sport England grant together with our own resources. If you don't know who we are ASK - we're all here most Sundays.
Gareth - gareth.griffiths@bnc.oxon.org
Roy - rdpoole@btinternet.com
Mike Curtis- mikecurtis-sailing@live.co.uk
Mike Jones - michaeljonessailing@btinternet.com