Chairman’s Update 27th June

Date: 28 June 2020

Plans are in place for the club to re open on Saturday 4th July with good food and drink available. We will be following all the relevant advice and are confident that we can provide a safe and enjoyable environment to enjoy time with family and friends. Keep monitoring the website for more details.

Work has continued at the Club to get ready and I must applaud the efforts of our great volunteers. Our outside patio area is looking good and Joe Moxham has been great with the planting up of the pots. Here he is with Dave Parkinson with some plants donated by former gateman Mick Smith’s family – thanks.



Dave Smith has been painting in the cellar this week, supported by Derek Houston, Les Bray, Linda Kenyon and Ian McFarlane. I am writing this on Saturday morning with a few of the first team due to arrive to help out for a few hours.

We also have a group of people (Luke Procter, Mark Murray, Steve Tiernan, Craig Steel and Derrick Cray) installing new equipment in the gym – beginning to look good.

Derrick has also been doing more pointing this week near the patio, assisted by Bill Dennison.



Ian Edwardson had an enjoyable day starting to clear the old play area and work will be continuing in the next few days.

We shall need more volunteers next week, particularly Thursday and Friday – please let me know if you can help.

We are waiting for guidance from the RFU on arrangements for a return to rugby; this is expected shortly and will be considered as a matter of urgency when it is received.

So, stay safe and watch the website for re opening details.

Management of the Club

The Club responded to the C-19 pandemic by taking a number of actions to minimise the financial impact. It was unfortunate that this included a small number of redundancies on the basis that it will be some time before the Club regains the level of business that we have been used to in recent years. We would like to say “thank you” to those who have left and we wish them all the very best for the future.

We are now in a position to re-open the Club on Saturday 4th July offering good quality food and drink. The re-opening has been project managed by Richard Ellis as a volunteer and I would like to sincerely thank him for his efforts to date. We have a good team in place to operate and support the business into the future.

It is now time to look beyond the re-opening and the management of the Club that will then be needed. As previously indicated, we intend to appoint an “Operations Manager”. We are looking for:
– an enthusiastic, “hands on” person with management experience
– ideally this experience would be in a “food and beverage” business but this is not essential
– experience of staff recruitment, training, and appraisal is essential
– experience of P&L management, including KPIs, monitoring trends and a strong focus on efficiency and effectiveness is required, with regular upward reporting on business performance
– experience of Project Management (particularly of modest new builds) would be beneficial
– the ability to communicate effectively and build/maintain teams is required
– knowledge of the Club would be beneficial.

If you think you might be interested and a good fit for what we are looking forward, please contact me for a informal discussion.

Andrew Donovan
Chairman
adonovan270@gmail.com
07885798843

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