I would like to start by introducing myself and welcoming everybody, new members and old to our great club which is in its 75th anniversary year. My name is John Ayre and I took over as Wirral Club Chairman in May 2011, previous to this I held the position of Minis & Junior Chairman. I am a local business man and have a son in the U13 squad.

For the purpose of clarity the Club is made up of three individual sections, Rugby – Senior, Rugby - Minis & Juniors and Cricket, each section has their own committee run by a Chairman, as it happens the three Andrews. Chairman of Rugby is Andy McKinney who is also Director of Rugby; Chairman of Minis & Juniors is Andrew Mills and Chairman of Cricket is Andrew Proctor. Each of these Chairmen also sits on the main Club Executive Committee, this committee being myself as Chairman, Leighton McKibbin as Secretary and Richard McNeill as Treasurer.

The reason for this update/newsletter is that I want to make sure every single Club member is fully aware of how the Club is run, its financial situation and our vision for its future. It is important that everyone understands how hard we struggle to make a profit. Currently we are paying nearly £15,000 per year ground rent to Leverhulme and Llancelyn Green Estates, add to this overheads such as gas, electricity, water rates, general rates and staff costs and this leaves little money left to reinvest into the Club. In the past the club has survived on bar profits, sadly bar profits have also fallen.

Despite this I made a pledge to everyone at the AGM that I wanted to improve both the facilities internally and externally in the coming year for everyone to enjoy. The club was looking very tired and in particular the men’s toilets and club showers where quite frankly disgusting. The changing rooms and surrounding corridors also looked tired and worn out.

A notice was duly put out to all members that we were going to hold a members working party in early July. The response was quite overwhelming as during the course of the day we had 55 volunteers.”It was just like Anneka Rice and her team at work”. In addition to the volunteer workforce we received considerable donations of money and equipment which has enabled us to fund the improvements. However like with everything in life the work ended up being a lot more than we anticipated, in fact 3 months on and a die-hard team of nine of us are still here most nights and weekends! I have to personally mention these guys as without them the drastic improvements to the Club would never have been possible. They are:
Tim Bedson, Neil Thomas, Steve Fergusson, Chris Gill, Andy McKinney, Dave Wynne , Chris Newton, Jason Dalton and yours truly.

Below is a condensed list of the improvements that have been achieved, I feel it is important to include this so you can appreciate the man hours and commitment involved by so many members of the club.

Internally:
• Shower Room – completely ripped out and renewed, including stripping out old showers, tiles etc. Rebuild including new plasterboards, battoning, floor to ceiling tiles, waterproof false ceiling and lighting, refitting pipe work, new shower heads and valves. We have even put up towel rails!
• Gents toilets - completely ripped out and renewed, including new toilets, hand wash basin and three urinals (yes the smelly floor trap has finally gone), cubicles, fully tiled walls, new hand drier, soap dispenser, toilet roll holders, complete redecoration and even a wall mounted electronic air freshener!!
• Changing rooms - completely redecorated including painting the floors, new clothes hooks throughout, ceiling tiles have been scrubbed and in some cases renewed. The changing room corridors have also been redecorated as have the floors.
• Main Club Room - parquet floor has been sanded down and re varnished (5 x coats)
New white skirting boards added throughout, door mantle fixed and all the woodwork has been painted white. New notice boards put up and old wall hanging items & trophies removed. The kitchen lobby and surrounding area has been decorated and a new condiments shelf put up. The tables have been refurbished and the legs painted
• Ladies - new toilet seats, shower curtains, toilet roll holders and a thorough deep clean. If any ladies would like to make some reasonable, achievable suggestions for further improvements please let me know.
• Lighting – in the Main Club room has been overhauled and in the next week or so we are having the ceiling sprayed white.
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Externally.
• Grandstand - adjacent to the 1st team pitch has been taken down, rebuilt and creosoted as has the standing area below the score board. The railings around the 1st team pitch have been rubbed down and painted.
• Fences – have been maintained and a new green fence has been installed around the exit area from the car park
• Furniture - the outside benches and wooden chairs have been sanded down and stained and have been kitted out with new parasols
• Posts – front pitch rugby posts and the flag pole have been painted as have the posts on Twickenham (the main pitch on the back field).We now even have maroon stripes on the cross bars.
• Grounds – rubbish and old equipment from around the outside of the clubhouse has been skipped, in fact we have now filled three skips over the course of the summer. All the guttering and drains have been cleaned out.

Whilst we are having a short break in improvements, as without which there may be a few divorces looming please consider how you may be able to help out in future. We are planning to carry on making improvements particularly to the main club room and bar area, so watch this space.

Amazingly all of these improvements have only cost us ~ £3,000 as we have begged, stole and borrowed from business contacts, friends and members, with many sponsoring our on-going B&Q shopping list. This has resulted in a saving of over £20,000 based on contractor costs to complete the works - .So a massive thank you to everyone involved.

Hot Water System
For years and years the hot water system at the club quite frankly hasn’t been good enough, and when we have a few teams at home there isn’t enough hot water for the lads to have showers. There is nothing better than playing rugby in the cold, mud and rain and then having a hot shower (well in our case a cold shower).
So I am delighted to tell everyone that we have done something about it. With the help of a three year sponsorship deal from Thwaites our brewery and money raised through sponsorship and a finance agreement, the hot water system is NOW being replaced. Work started last week and should be completed by the end of next week the 23rd of September. The system we are having installed comprises of 4 x instantaneous hot water boilers which will provide UNLIMITED hot water throughout the year.
Unfortunately this improvement comes at a considerable cost, in fact some £12,000 plus vat.
So with my commitment to make improvements we now need ALL the members to support the Club. Help increase the bar profits by staying after a game or training and have a drink or two whilst enjoying the much improved facilities.

We also all now need to ensure that we respect and look after the facilities.

Kitchen and Club Café
We have a new catering team, Stephanie and Jason. They have personally overhauled the kitchen installing brand new equipment including cooker, grill, pannini maker, friers, griddle, rice maker, direct feed hot water cylinder etc.
Please try and support them on match days even if there is a queue! I can personally recommend the food, the bacon toasties are brilliant. In the past the club hasn’t made any money whatsoever from food, however the new caterers will be paying us a percentage of their profits so the more everyone spends the more we make and the more improvements we can make.

Land Drainage 1st Team Pitch
As most people know the front pitch whilst it looks great does suffer from drainage problems which mean that we are only able to play a limited number of games on it during the course of the season.
This week we have met up with Ted Mitchell who works for the RFU and is in charge of allocating funds and grants to Rugby Clubs.
We discussed the drainage problem with him and he has kindly arranged for the Head Grounds Man from Twickenham to visit us on the 12th October, in order to carry out a survey and provide us with his recommendations for improving the drainage.
I will be reporting back to everybody with their proposals in my next newsletter, so watch this space.

Moving Forward in our 75th Anniversary Year
This is already proving to be an exciting year full of changes and to move this forward we have created a Development Committee and a Development Fund.

Our Target is to raise £100,000.

I urge you all to get involved fundraising and gaining sponsorship to help us achieve this goal. The money raised will assist us in creating a sustainable business plan for the club encompassing current members and the local community taking us through to our Centenary Celebrations!

The fund raising Barometer will be on the club wall shortly.
As previously mentioned we are desperately seeking further Club sponsorship, so if anyone can help please contact me either by email or phone, my details are listed at the foot of this newsletter.
Please also contact me if you have any suggestions, comments or offers of assistance arising from this newsletter

Great success so far in our improvements - thanks again to all involved
Here’s to another successful season.

John Ayre

Email:john@gsecurityalarms.co.uk
Mobile:07786 837045