Newsletter Issue 33

What a year!

When I began writing the newsletters, the idea was to keep in touch with everyone during the “short” time when we would be closed! Although we were open for a couple of months, I never imagined that this crippling situation would still be affecting us nine months later. There is light at the end of the tunnel now but, from what we hear, we’re still several months away from normality.

You will not be surprised to learn that the club has suffered due to the enforced closures. In order to assess where we are and our future, we convened an unofficial Board meeting on Tuesday (should have been Monday but the snow in Chedworth was pretty deep).

Those who hadn’t seen the changes were very happy with them and we were brought up to date with where we are and future plans. Since we have no idea when we will be able to reopen, there is little we can do at the moment. However, financially we are in a reasonable place thanks to all our wonderful members who supported us and paid their subscriptions in September and who put their trust in our Covid secure environment and took part in our league games and couple of friendlies.

That money will see us through the next few months fortunately. Obviously, we still have outgoings which have to be paid whether we are open or closed. When we were officially closed in the first lockdown, we were eligible for a grant from the government which helped. However, during the second lockdown and when we were in Tier 3, officially we could have been open for a very few people but it was not financially viable.

Now that we are in Tier 4, we are officially closed so, if the same rules apply, we should be eligible again. Rest assured, our Finance Director, Sheila and our Company Secretary, Kath will leave no stone unturned to secure any money available to us in order to keep us afloat. If we all work together we WILL survive this!

Talking about keeping us afloat, is there anyone in the club with a plumbing background, please? We are trying to keep all outgoings down to an absolute minimum in order to maintain the bank balance. We have identified the source of a small leak which is a relatively simple job for someone with plumbing experience. Just leave a reply here on the website or leave a message on the club phone which Kath will pick up when she’s next in. Many thanks.

Good end to the year for the following lucky people, the 200 Club winners are:

£50 Angus Cooper

£20 Sue Boulton

£10 Patrick Burke

£50 Snowball: Robin Atwood

I’m sure that the machine which comes up with the numbers for the 200 Club and the raffles doesn’t like my numbers!

As this is 31st December, all that remains for me to do is to wish everybody a very happy new year. Please let it be better than this year! Also, enjoy whatever festivities you have planned for tonight, as summarised by the following ‘government approved’ video…

SO looking forward to the time that we can reopen and be together again.

Linda

Linda Watkin-Jones. 

Director (PR & Marketing)