The Club has been part of our community for nearly 100 years. It would be such a tragedy if we were to lose it. Obviously, in its present form, it is not working. It has consistently lost substantial amounts of money since the beginning of the covid period. The whole hospitality industry and especially committee managed facilities have undergone great stress in recent times and the club is no exception! It has not had the direction or investment it needed to move with the times for many, many years now.

I have no doubt, and I will not be alone in noting that choices have been made by the many committees over the years that will have led to the situation we find ourselves in. But those people gave their time willingly, free of charge and would always have had the best interests for the future of the club in their hearts. It has not in the main been run by professionals. They are just volunteers. Carpenters, drivers, shop workers, gardeners all manner of professions but rarely accountants, business managers or hospitality experts. It would not be fair to point the finger at any decision made by any individual or group. This club is not the first and certainly will not be the last that will find itself in this place. We have all had an opportunity to be involved and very few have stood up to the plate and taken that opportunity. We must be grateful for the work they have done in getting us the 96 years we and our forebears have already enjoyed. Now the club is in trouble and needs help not hindsight.

I very much appreciate that emotions will be running high on this matter. The history is what it is. It cannot be changed. Whilst the future looks very bleak, even darker than I outlined at the AGM, it is still my own and the committee’s intention to keep fighting until the inevitable is unavoidable. The point of insolvency is now looking like mid August.

I have been analysing the accounts posted from 2011. The club has been returning very little surplus for each of the years since and including then. Certainly, nowhere near enough to survive. The only two years that it did make an acceptable surplus were 2018 and 2019. But that has to be achieved EVERY year. Since 2021 it has made massive losses each and every year. Anyone, including myself, who thinks the impending closure is a shock should ask themselves the question “where were you when these losses were published”? “If you wanted to save the club and feel so indignant about the decisions made, why weren’t you offering your expertise then”? As I mentioned, I am just as guilty as anyone else on those questions. We have all failed the club and as members we all had a responsibility to do something and not just leave it to others and then complain when the results are not what we want.

This is not a time for recriminations but a time to get together and fight to keep the club as part of our community. Finger pointing is very unhelpful and irrelevant. All it does is cause upset. Already, those that are working their socks off trying to solve the issues we face are feeling very disheartened at some of the negativity being posted. As I noted above “we are all part of the problem”!

However, it is very encouraging to see comments from people wanting to see the club survive. You are right, this is an important facility for the village. All our apathy towards it over the last 10 to 15 years is now being recognised. We will greatly miss it once it’s gone. We have great plans. But we urgently need to get through this current trauma.

In the immediate term we need money to bring us into liquidity. We need £25,000 to £30,000 to get us to a point where we can hibernate the site to give us time to secure funding for the major investment needed to refurbish, restructure and secure the site as a new community hub for the village.

Any help you can give us with pledges of money, access to money, professional financial services would be gratefully received. But we need it now!!

This page has been set up to raise vital funds to keep our club going, please dig deep and as a community of this wonderful village we can all help save this important asset.

Thankyou!