Ok so lets have a little history lesson about what we have been doing to get a new venue for the club to race at over the winter.
We were told before we went outdoors that there might be a possibility of the school sportshall being taken down and that work should be starting over the summer. Just before we left were told that it was looking unlikely that the school would be doing the work this year as they had got adequate enough funding to do the works necessary so we went on the assumption that works would probably not start till after the winter season had finished and would be next summer 2012. We were then told not very long before we came back indoors that works had been booked and now it would start at the end of october. So we would have almost eight weeks to race indoors before we needed to move. At a committee meeting before we came back indoors we were then told by the school that there is only 5 weeks now availiable as work will be starting at the end of september. So obviously this cut our amount of time down to find a venue.
We visited and made enquires with at least ten venues. Beckett and emmanuael school looked promising as they had a decent sized sportshall, availiable on friday but there is no storage for our equipment and we would not be allowed to provide storage on site. So obviously those two venues would not suitable. Another School we looked at was in cotgrave but this was closed on fridays.
We then moved on to leisure centres, Bingham leisure centre seemed ideal, lots of space, availiable ground floor storage, good access to the hall. A meeting was had with them and the manager of the leisure centre went away, to see if he could move a club from their booking in the hall on a friday night to a smaller hall to free up the hall for us. Unfortunatly the club said that they did not want to move, and being a longstanding user of the leisure centre there was nothing we could do. So Bingham was lost and we had to go back to the drawing board.
We looked at the following leisure centres, Cotgrave, Portland leisure centre, clifton leisure centre, the nottingham tennis centre, Rushcliffe Arena, and a few others. All of these leisure centres either were not availiable, had no storage, or were just plainly too small to accomadate us. We also discovered that if you fancy playing badminton then friday nights is a good night to take it up.
Towards the end of our search We made enquires with Rushcliffe leisure centre, after a preliminary visit we made moves to book the venue, initially a small basketball court which would have been enough to have a decent sized track in and then pitting in a extrnal room. We talked to initially an interim manager, then manged to track down (believe me it wasn't as easy as it sounds) their booking manager. After we had some meetings with him we went to book the above hall, we had been told that the Larger gym would be availible to us after christmas which again is a very large hall and ideal for our needs. On the day of booking the venue we were told that apparently there is another manager of the leisure centre who we had never heard of before who had offered the small hall to a table tennis club, but there might be a possibility of having the small gym due to the club that was using it falling in numbers and could easily be accomodated in the squash courts. So this was proposed to said club and they would be having a meeting about it last friday to doisscuss this matter. The club decided not to move and as they are paying their bills and have a contract to the end of january then leisure centre were unable to force them out. We found this news out on sunday and so preceded to book the NWSC on Monday.
Booking was made and confirmed and we went on to order the hire of a container to store our stuff in. This was promised to us during the week. Container arrived at site on thursday, unfortunaley the space allocated for our container had cars parked in it and although the driver enquired with the leisiure centre about getting them shifted the leisure centre were not able to move them. Therefore the container stayed on the back of the lorry, and as such could not be delivered today due to other drop offs etc. So thats why we are not racing tonight.
Why did we book the leisure centre on alternative saturdays? Well we get a cheaper booking if we have consequative bookings we get a discounted rate. unfortunatly there is another club on a friday night who had it booked till the christmas break and so booking on a saturday was our only option.
So basically of all the venues we have spoken to there have either been pitfalls, either no bookings availiable, previous bookings getting in the way, being told that fridays were availiable and then fidning out subsequently that they are not (usually after a week of enquiries) and booking managers not knowing who is booked into their venues and when, and then obviously the other venues that have just not been suitable. Its not been the most straight forward thing to do and we have had three to four committee meetings where all we have concentrated on is finding a new venue, meetings that were two weeks apart as opposed to the usual month gap. The reason we are finsishing so early before christmas is because the hall is booked up for friday saturday and sundays for christmas fairs.
Lets be rest assured that we have not been resting on our laurels and working hard to get the club somewhere to race. Barring the container problem we would have not lost this week and would have been continuous in our club nights.
Obviously saturday nights are not ideal for everyone, myself included will not be racing at them as I can't make saturdays but look forward to having a full friday night schedule after christmas. Hopefully we will be back in the school after another glorious summer at Bingham
Robert Jaques
WBMCC Chairman