Duffield Squash & Tennis Club
23 Town Street • Duffield, Derby • DE56 4EH
Tel: 01332 841702
Dear [[firstname]],
Shortish version
Your Recovery Team have been busy, very busy. You have permission to be getting excited, very excited.
Longer version
You have permission to be getting excited, very excited, to see our club rise up from the hugely damaging effects of the catastrophic flood only 18 weeks ago.
Squash
As you read this email we already have court 5 virtually ready to play, court 4 has the floor substructure fitted waiting for the top planked surface, and court 3 is being prepared for its under floor heating prior to the beech floor going down.
So this means that on plan we will be playing squash & racketball again at the end of this coming week. After the flood, we targeted playing again by end of Feb, and that now looks very likely.
The rest of the inside of the clubhouse is obviously still unfinished, and this gives us two main challenges :
Firstly we only have one operational changing room, which is the ladies. This has been the subject of much discussion amongst many people because as we know the huge demographic bias is towards it being men who play squash and racketball. As a result we have made the difficult decision to swap this to become the men’s changing room for the the immediate future. The does mean that the few important ladies who do play on the squash courts will not have an on site shower for now. We are really sorry about this, but we think this is the best way to get sport playing again as soon as possible. Let’s keep talking about it to see if there is a better way to manage it. The toilet in the lobby will be ladies only, also giving a small area to change, Gents will need to use the changing room.
The second consideration is that we have about £90,000 worth of brand new squash courts in the middle of an unfinished building site ! This means we ALL have to be extremely careful that we do not damage the brand new wooden floors by bringing grit etc on in our shoes that will instantly scratch the wood.
As you might have seen we are in the process of laying final finished flooring behind courts 4 & 5 which means that area will be clean. We have also laid temporary carpet tiles to create walkways from the front door and all around the ground floor areas including to court 3.
These efforts might be adequate to ensure 100 % grit free shoes to protect the new courts. However we are still considering insisting that members change into their court shoes literally right outside the court door to minimise the risk of damage. There will be more detailed comms from the squash committee including this point.
There will be huge amounts of repeated cleaning required over the coming months !
Tennis
There is lots of building work happening on the tennis courts fitting in around variable weather conditions. For another few weeks please do continue to be flexible and expect unplanned changes to work schedules that might mean courts suddenly get taken out of action. Apologies in advance.
The fantastic news is that we have pulled forward the laying of new carpets on courts 1, 2 & 7. We have the heavy machinery arriving next Friday 1st March and all the carpets and sand arriving on Monday 4th March. Weather dependent we hope it will take up to about Friday 15th March to get them all playable.
Like a few weeks ago, this heavy work on the tennis courts will mean the car park needs to completely close starting on Sunday afternoon 3rd March. We will manage the reopening as proactively as we can. The timing of this coincident with opening the squash courts is a real pain, but only a short term one.
Gym
The pixies on the Recovery Team have bust a gut in the last few days to kick start the reinstatement of the gym.
Huge thanks to our resident electrician and plumber who came in at virtually zero notice to do some pre work. A contract flooring company then prepared the floor ready for new LVT similar to before. Then over this weekend a joiner and a plasterer have worked wonders so it now looks almost like a proper room again. We hope to get it decorated, flooring down, and skirting fitted within the next 2 weeks. After that we can bring back out of storage the gym equipment that wasn’t damaged, and also get the 2 brand new running machines and 2 new cross trainers.
Our new unified Club
As we know the members voted at the recent EGM to unify the clubs into a single structure, and this new organisation needs a management council to oversee the continued development and operation of our fantastic club. We have unashamedly stated on several occasions that we are taking the opportunity created by the flood to rebuild it bigger and hugely more capable of thriving for the next generations.
This will only happen with capable, passionate and willing people choosing to come forward and help steer the ship. It won’t happen on its own !
We have sent out what we believe will be the role profiles of the various management positions. Please do have a read. Please don’t assume that it’s always someone else’s job to do these roles. Please do choose to play a proactive role in the exciting thinking to work out what it actually means to create a more capable and financially secure future for the next generation. We need people who represent the demographic of the club we are trying to create for the next generations, not just the likes of the late middle aged bloke writing this email!
If you want to have a chat about anything contact Gren, Vic, Andy Page or Nigel Williams. You can find our details on the club booking systems.
So in summary it’s a mega busy few weeks ahead of us. Please keep flexible. Please be ultra respectful of the new squash courts, please keep smiling, please be excited about the future we are trying to create, please get involved by being interested in the management council roles.
Very best regards,
Your Duffield Recovery Team
25/02/2024
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