Club Development 

Following approval at our November AGM, we have submitted our application to the Charities Commission to convert the Club’s legal status to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). This will establish us as a charity, allow the Club to conduct business as a legal entity, limit the liability of our trustees, and improve our ability to raise funds. 

We are also in discussion with BANES to replace our existing lease, as we need to lease more land to build a larger Clubhouse - the current lease only covers our existing “footprint”. There are number of options for the type of lease we could have, but initially we are discussing the possibility of a Community Asset Transfer (CAT), which would enable a much longer lease at low or nil rent in return for us taking full responsibility for our court surface. A CAT would also improve our ability to obtain grants and loans. We can however only make a formal application for a CAT after we have established the CIO. 

We have completed an initial design and received full planning permission for a new Clubhouse, which will be about twice the length of the existing one and we have received some preliminary cost estimates for the construction. We cannot however proceed with this until we have a new lease in place, hence the three issues referred to above – CIO, CAT and new Clubhouse have to be sequential and may therefore take some time.