Charlbury Football & Social Club

Tue 5 Jan 2016, 12:57 (last edited on Tue 5 Jan 2016, 13:01)

In a similar vain to Martin, I am absolutely behind ensuring there is a Sports and Social Club on the site, BUT in addition to the Library and Community (Sports) Hall that will offer a most fantastic facility for Charlbury. There is no-one more than me that likes watching football (mainly Tottenham) with a beer in hand.

To help for my small part, I joined The Thomas Gifford Trust (TGT), as a trustee in 2015, principally to assist in the development of Sporting facilities definitely not supplied elsewhere in Charlbury!! This posting is from my own individual viewpoint but I would state that from all the meetings I have attended, which are many, I have found nothing but support for the Sports and Social Club from the Trustees of the Thomas Gifford Trust.

I do think it is important to point out that, that the Gifford Trustees like the S & SC committee are all local Charlbury volunteers, and that they have spent a huge amount of time working incredibly hard to find pockets of grant funding just to get as far as delivering the sports and library facilities on behalf of the community. Also my experience, from being part of the team that built the new pavilion at the cricket club is that any grant application often has an immensely strict criterion. Certainly at the cricket club, we were unsuccessful in finding any organisation that would issue a grant for a bar facility but we did secure financial support for the changing rooms and shower facilities. I have real sympathy for the S & SC as this is a real challenge.

With regard to the Thomas Gifford Trust, it is clear to me that they have sought to assist the Sports and Social club within the parameters they have to uphold as a charitable organisation.
I am aware that over the last three years, various options have been discussed but this is currently now likely to take the form of the granting of a ground lease at a highly subsidized ground rent including a significant rent free period. Personally, I wish this was offered to us at the cricket club! Surely, this gives a great platform for a self-build project and I genuinely believe the TGT trustees are doing everything they can to support the S & SC.

We need to turn this thread into a positive contribution to aid the Sports and Social Club. The land is able to be granted, there are lots of building skills in the town and we have done similar builds elsewhere.

We all need to support each other and offer help where we can!