Dear members
A big hello to you all , I hope you are all keeping safe and that you are enjoying the mostly good weather.
I would like to thank all of you who sent a reply to my previous Newsletter in early May. Your messages of support are greatly appreciated .
So what’s been happening since the last communication.
All of our staff are still Furloughed.
Michelle and Kim are still volunteering their free time to running the food service, although customers’ orders have diminished and therefore the service will be operating on a much reduced scale . Michelle will be sending out a separate e mail soon.
Peter Reynolds has been cleaning the Bowls Carpet on a regular basis and also cleaned the Bowls mats , thank you Peter.
We applied for a grant of over £11000 from Sport England which allowed us to claim every day running expenses of the club between 1st March and 31st July . Hoping that we may be awarded somewhere near £4000 , which is about the average that they have been awarding, we are delighted to say that we have been granted £9194 , way more than our expectations. We are still waiting for this to land in our bank account, but have been assured it will arrive in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks to Liz for helping me prepare the application .
I feel that we received this amount as the club now supports all aspects of the community including people who are visually impaired and people with dementia. Along with the £25000 government grant this will financially help us through the Summer and round to October.
Last Monday I received an email from the English Indoor Bowls Association , our governing body . This email contained an extensive and comprehensive document on Guidance to opening up indoor Bowls Clubs. Although not guaranteed they indicated that the government may give the green light to opening up Indoor bowls clubs early in July. Good news indeed if the Country behaves itself.
So we have to prepare for a possible reopening , something I’m sure a lot of you would like.
Last Thursday we held a committee meeting and agreed to move forward with safety measures to protect our members. We will form sub committees so that we can cover all aspects of safety and how the Bowling Green will operate.
If and when the club opens it will not be as we know it.
We will be relying on you our members to adhere strictly to all the measures that will be in place. If we do this there should be no reason why our members could not return to bowling safely.
Some of the measures would involve a one way system in and out of the club with directional signage, the closure of the changing rooms and lockers would no longer be able to be used.
Once all of these measures and all decisions have been agreed I will send out further emails keeping you up to date with progress.
Other measures may include the introduction of a voucher system for green fees, we are also trialling an online rink booking system. They are necessary to avoid contact by hand on materials.
At this time we can only communicate with you via an online newsletter. If you know of any member that is not online could you please print and pass this email on to them.
One thing I am sure of, having spoken to many of you during lockdown, is that you all miss the friendship and companionship that the club provides. Hopefully we can open up soon and renew our acquaintances.
Best Regards
Dave Parks
Chairman
