As population grows Stratford Sports Club outlines future vision
A GROWING community will need a sports club that can grow with it and the concept of a - one sports club - in Stratford was once again bought into focus at a special presentation last week.
Plans for an ambitious state-of-the-art facility at the current Stratford Sports Club site took shape during a two-hour meeting where Project Rubicon – first revealed in the Herald in December 2021 – was discussed by club and board members lasty Wednesday.
So significant was this discussion that members who attended the recent AGM agreed the Rubicon needed an extended platform for meaningful dialogue to take place with a deliberately long period of time of two hours set aside for a thorough question and answer session.
Board member Nick Abell said his part of the evening’s presentation covered the “why” behind Rubicon while Kevin Shute and James Spicer – also board members – explained what had been done and achieved so far.
It became clear that while Rubicon aspires to be one sports club with anything between 5 to 7 different sports represented it was much more than just a redevelopment project with a potential cost of £15 million; Kevin Shute identified five “pillars” of work and progress that needed to be included - people, culture, operations, governance, facilities management and development.
Nick Abell said: ”At the beginning of the first lockdown, back in March 2020, what was a relatively new board met (on Zoom) to assess how and whether the club could survive the Covid crisis. The severity and length of that crisis was then unknown. The board looked at finances and took the firm view that the club fortunately had a sufficiently strong balance sheet to provide the resilience needed to survive the crisis even though we had no idea just how long it would last or what its lasting impacts would be.”
What did become clear at this stage of discussion was the club must ensure it came out of the crisis in a much better position and should make the most of its income to make the most of facilities and enable investment in new facilities and people to drive the club forward.
“The real focus had to be the financial position of the club and whilst the Club was used to turning a modest profit, the stark fact was that the profit and loss account relied heavily on the income from a commercial car park operation. Rather than providing windfall funds to enable significant investment in sport, this income was actually keeping the club afloat. The board was of the firm view that with over 1,000 members the club should be able to pay its way without needing to rely on that extra income and allowing greater investment in the provision of sporting opportunity,” Nick Abell said.
During his presentation there were other areas that needed to be addressed to ensure a smoother running of the whole operation.
“There were 15 different bank accounts across the club, often with different banks and between them the sections utilised four different accountancy firms to prepare section accounts before submitting them to the central club - it was just bonkers. The process of financial integration simply had to be achieved as a priority,” said Nick Abell.
However, there has been progress with club’s income, particularly in terms of bar and hospitality takings. The total amount from this revenue stood at £100,000 for the year 2019, in June of this year, the bar took £39,000 a clear sign of increased patronage.
Nick Abell added that Rubicon hopes to eventually deliver
a hockey pitch back closer to the club, alongside the requirements that a number of sections had for enhanced facilites an additional squash court alongside an upgrade of existing courts, better cricket practice facilites, potential new space such as paddle courts and an investment in people and sports training.
But at what price?
“The figure of £15m is not scientific, it’s a finger in the air figure as advised by architects. In 2024 we hope to come up with a proper costed quantification. This is going to move at no particular pace but we are after a bigger sports club with fantastic facilities on this site. We are a growing population in Stratford and we will be expected to grow with it,” Nick said.
