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New Clubhouse:
Latest News and Pictures
23rd April 2008
The roof is now very near completion and now we have a water-proof building. The electrical wiring should begin next week. We seem to have passed recent on-site inspections by the Fire Service and the Police as part of our application to sell alcohol again on the site. Plans for the new bar, the new kitchen, security and access control arrangements, under-floor heating and the internal decor of the new clubhouse are at various stages of completion.
The first payment of the interest free loan from the LTA (£70,000) made its way into the club's bank account this week.
5th April 2008
Slates are nailed to the roof, the kitchen doorway is moved, and the changing room windows are 'improved'.
21st March 2008
The roofing felt was applied this week and next week the roof battens will be nailed in place followed by the roof slates being installed. The requests from members old and new to purchase commemorative bricks has been enormous. At the last count over 130 bricks had been sold!
17th February 2008
Work begins on building the roof. The wooden roof frames were delivered during the week and work is well underway to install the internal roof structure. A week with little or no rain has been a bonus although the builders have 'enjoyed' a few frosty early mornings.
28th January 2008
Walls going up and scaffolding installed. The final details on the electrical wiring specification, TV and plumbing are now close to being resolved. Detailed kitchen planning is underway and the bar design work begins on Thursday.
14th January 2008
Breeze block inner walls start to go up - and still the rain falls. Various sub-groups are finalising details on wiring, bar design, kitchen design, internal decor and furnishings, audio-visual facilities, security and meeting the Council's stringent requirements for disabled facilities.
9th January 2008
The builders arrived on site on Monday 7th January and in spite of the heavy rain are making good progress.
16th December 2007
Work on the foundations has proceeded on schedule and the drainage and concrete floor will be fitted by Friday 21st December. The building of the walls is scheduled to begin on 8th January.
The Barclays Bank loan was finally signed off on 30th November and the LTA loan has now got past the legal phase and the contract just now awaits the signatures of the four club Trustees.
21st November 2007
Ex-Club member Paul Walsh of Aspect Structural Repair Services began digging the foundations in earnest today. The inner carpark (between Courts1/2 and Courts 5/6/7) will now be closed until Christmas. We still hope to complete the foundations by January and begin building above ground before February.
The club has, at last, received the loan contract from Barclays Bank and all that is required now are the signatures of our four Club Trustees to this document to unlock the £300,000. The final paperwork from the LTA for the £95,000 loan from them is also going the rounds for signatures.
12th November 2007
Dry walkways have now been laid to link the buildings in the temporary village with the Dome and the car park. Additional movement-sensitive lighting has been installed at the gateway between the car park and temporary village - with additional lighting to illuminate the entrance to the Dome being added later this week. We hope to have completed the repair to lock on the Dome revolving door on Friday. This Thursday - 15th November - Paul Walsh is planning to begin marking out of the land prior to commencing the digging of the foundations. All the fine detail on the internal design on the clubhouse has now been completed. The formal loan contract is finally expected from Barclays Bank this week.
22nd October 2007
Further delays at Barclays Bank, involving their legal department drawing up the necessary documents for the club to sign, and some further tweaking of the internal club layout has delayed the foundations work till early November. Members have continued to make generous donations to the club to help us pay for the new clubhouse. The Management Committee heartilly thanks all the people who have purchased named bricks in the new clubhouse wall and to those who have donated much more than the cost of a brick! However there are still just a few unnamed bricks left - so contact Iain Britton if you'd like to buy one.
Some lighting has now been installed in the temporary village and more lighting will be added soon to light up the car park and the entrance to the dome. Dry walkways have been researched and should be installed in early November.
9th October 2007
The old clubhouse site was completely cleared by Thursday 4th October. This week we are finalising all the internal details inside the new clubhouse so that Paul Walsh can begin work on the foundations next week. The foundations work is likely to last 6/7 weeks. Our Indian Summer weather broke today and gave us torrential rain, and the whole site is likely to get a bit muddy. We are awaiting Barclays Bank's final set of papers for signing. We still also await the temporary lighting and dry walkways to link the Dome and car park with the temporary clubhouse, changing rooms and toilets - but they will be installed soon.
2nd October 2007
The old clubhouse was completely knocked down today between 8:00 and 10:00 am.
26th September 2007
The Demolition contractors began the clubhouse demolition at 8:00 am yesterday. We expect the demolition to take around two weeks. The temporary clubhouse, changing rooms and toilets are now functioning properly. Lighting and dry walk ways linking these buildings, the Dome and the car park will be added very soon. Sadly owing to a spare parts problem the Dome door locking mechanism is still not repaired. Technica will fix this as soon as possible.
14th September 2007
Paul Walsh of Aspect set up 'camp' today in front of the old clubhouse. Paul, an ex-member of the club, is currently project manager on site and he'll supervise the demolition of the old clubhouse and his company will actually build the new clubhouse foundations. An additional temporary container was delivered by Elliott yesterday, placed in the wrong place and was re-located by Paul and his team today. The dome light switches have been removed from the old clubhouse and new, light grey ones installed on your left as you stand in front of the revolving doors of the Dome. Technica are well on the way to restoring the Dome Card entry system and the Dome will start to be regularly locked on Monday 17th September for-pay-to-play periods and opened for Club/free play/coaching periods.
Lighting, heating, toilets, water supplies, notice boards, post box, dry walk ways etc will all be established in the temporary 'village' on our old putting green today and Saturday. A working party on Saturday will move all the stuuf from the old clubhouse and the groundsman's shed into the temoporary clubhouse and the temporary containers. The 'party' starts at 10:00 am and will go on for a few hours. If members would like to help - just turn up.
The demolition of the clubhouse will take place during the week of 17th September.
5th September 2007
SSE now tell us that the switchover to our new electrical Mains supply will happen at 8:00 am to 8:30 am on Monday 10th September. The new Electricals' Housing has now been constructed alongside our Dome Motors' Housing. Our teething problems with the Elliott, the UK's largest supplier of temporary buildings, continues. It's many days ago that we informed them that they'd delivered a temporary clubhouse considerably smaller than the one we ordered. Until our correctly sized temporary clubhouse arrives we can't connect up the utilities, fit it out and move out of the old clubhouse. The scheduled demolition date of 12th September is now somewhat in doubt. The bar in the old clubhouse is now well and truly closed - it having no power, booze, soft drinks, cash or snacks in it. Our hallowed Honours Boards - dating back to 1884 - have now been taken down and safely stored away.
21st August 2007
At 9:40 am the temporary buildings arrived, and by the afternoon the Groundsman's sheds, the temporary clubhouse and the changing rooms were in place on the old putting green. Paul had an encouraging meeting with Ealing Council officials and our high 'worst case' cost estimates for foundations and drainage are likely to be significantly lowered. Progress was made in identifying all the final last details of the building specification with a view to formalising it all at an on-site meeting on 24th August. With less than 10 more pints left in the last Pride barrel, Eric began packing up the bar contents to be stored off site over the winter.
17th August 2007
More trench digging and filling and the trench reaches alongside Courts 3 and 4. An on site project management meeting takes place and the exact locations of the permanent new housing for all the dome electrics is finalised at the western extremity of the club's land adjacent to the dome motors' housing. Also the position of the temporary clubhouse, changing rooms. toilets and groundsman's sheds is finalised and Will marked out the locations using his tennis court line marker!
16th August 2007
Technica arrived on site and connected up the cable to enable unlocking the dome and...it wouldn't work. Technica then introduced some power locally into the dome entry card reader and hey presto got it working, swiped a card only to find that the lock was jammed. Technica then had to break into the dome by disassembling part of the dome revolving door. Entry to the dome is now possible. The cable was clearly cut in more than one place and new cable will have to be laid to re-enable the dome locking mechanism. More trench digging and filling was carried out by Sean and Chris, two of Paul Walsh's team. Ex-member Paul Walsh of Aspect SRS Ltd is working on contract with the new clubhouse builders and is currently running the project.
15th August 2007
At noon we discover that the digging exercise has severed the power cable linking the dome entry control system in the clubhouse with the dome itself - hence disabling entry to the dome.
Technica investigate and agree to repair the cable the following morning.
14th August 2007
First sods cut by builders as part of a trench digging operation alongside the southern side of the dome to upgrade the electrical power on site and facilitate relocating the dome power, alarm light switches and entry control systems from the clubhouse to a temporary housing. Dome entry system stops working.
Outcome of EGM and Clubhouse project update
For those who were unable to attend the 12th August EGM , the outcome was that all 4 resolutions were passed unanimously. This means that the committee will be proceeding with the project and the loans as described in the EGM letter / notice. Between 14th August and early - mid September, various works will be carried out to decommision the old clubhouse e.g. move the dome power supply. Also, a temporary clubhouse facility with a seating area, kitchen, changing rooms (no showers) and toilets will be put in place. During this decommision phase, the bar stocks will be run down, and the bar will be staffed on an adhoc basis only by key holders when they are present. Following this, demolition of the old clubhouse will begin. Whilst demolition is in progress, there is the possiblity that the club make have to be closed for a few days for Health and Safety reasons. Further announcements will be made nearer the time.
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