Grand Opening 

of our Sports and Community Centre

On Sunday 2^nd October, with the sun shining, our new Sports and Community Centre was finally opened.

When the project  initially kicked off in 2008, none of us realised the enormity of the task before us - the design of a purpose built sports and community facility, raising the required funding from local and national bodies, demolishing the existing pavilion and the eventual building of a new state of the art, Sports and Community Centre for our Parish.

The new centre comprises

·       Two changing suites for home and away teams complete with showers, toilets, lockers, benches and kit hooks.

·       Separate changing facilities for officials such as referees and linesmen.

·       A community room/club room with a modern equipped kitchen.

·       An archive room for parish records and artefacts.

·       Full disabled access.

·       Internal and external baby changing tables.

·       An external toilet.

·       Storage facilities for the sports clubs and groundsman

To complement the new building, the football pitch has also been upgraded with improved drainage and reseeded.

It is hoped that the new Sports and Community Centre will create a centre of excellence for sport within the community encouraging our youngsters to take an active roll in sporting activities. 

We were honoured that representatives from many of our generous sponsors joined us for the day’s events. In addition over 200 people from within our community came to witness the opening and enjoy the fun the Charlwood Olympics.

We have to thank both Alison Martin, chair of JBTMT, and Helyn Clack our Surrey County Councillor who jointly carried out the opening ceremony. Their backing for the project over the last 5 years has been a source of inspiration to us, and without which the task for raising the required funding would have proved to be almost impossible.

Following words of thanks to all those who have supported the project, Alison and Helyn jointly cut the ribbon. This was shortly followed by an enjoyable and amusing interlude at the “Charlwood Fun Olympics”. Many of the rival sports groups entered teams and amid much laughter from the spectator's proved how just difficult it was to knock bottles over with a pair of tights and a tennis ball.

Martin Needham

Charlwood Sports and Community Centre

Opening Ceremony – 2pm, Sunday 2nd October

Over the past 7 years, the Parish Council supported by our community, has been working to replace the old pavilion on the recreation ground with a new Sports & Community Centre.  Although originally it was anticipated that the existing pavilion could be refurbished, it soon became apparent that this was not cost effective and a new building that met national standards with a life prediction of over 50 years, was required.

Although funding proved not to be easy, the project managed to be supported from a diverse range of funding partners. In addition to our John Bristow & Thomas Mason Trust (who gave us our first grant), the project was supported by national funding partnerships including Sports England Inspired Fund, Football Foundation, London Marathon Charitable Trust, Veolia Environmental Trust and to Surrey County Council. The project also owes a great gratitude to our local community who continued to support the project.

We are now pleased to say that the new building is virtually complete and we are will be holding the Opening Ceremony at 2pm on Sunday, 2nd October 2016

The opening ceremony will be performed jointly by our County Councillor Mrs Helyn Clack and Alison Martin, Chair JB&TM Trust. There will be an opportunity to tour the centre and to take photographs. In addition, throughout the afternoon there will be community games taking place on the field.

Everybody is welcome and we hope that you will be able to attend and join in the festivities.

Martin Needham

Progress pics!

 Charlwood Sports and Community Centre

Project Report Update – Dec 2015

Fund Raising

Over the last few years, the Parish Council has been successful in obtaining partnership funding for the new Sports and Community Centre on the recreation ground. By mid-August 2015, a total of £587k had been raised towards the project. Support was received from a significant number of grant funding trusts including

• John Bristow and Thomas Mason Trust

• Surrey County Council Infrastructure Fund

• Surrey County Council Members Allocation

• Henry Smiths Charity

• Veolia Environmental Trust

• Gatwick Airport Community Trust

• Sports England Inspired Facilities

• London Marathon Charitable Trust

• Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund

Additionally, there has been a significant support from the community raising over £25,000.

Tendering

Following our success in raising funds during the latter part of 2014, the Parish Council took the decision to commence the building phase of the project and a kick off meeting was held early in January 2015. Building regulations approval was sought from Mole Valley District Council and a number of specialist consultants were engaged including

• Architect
• Quantity Surveyor
• Construction Design and management
• Mechanical and Electrical Engineer - lighting, heating, ventilation, renewable, heat recovery etc
• Structural Engineer – Structural Design
• Agricultural Engineer – Ground Investigations
• Thermal Consultant – Thermal Properties of building

An Expressions of Interest (EOI) document was drawn up and submitted to a number of potential contractors. From the responses received, 4 contractors were shortlisted and received the full tender pack at the end of June.

Tenders were received and were formally opened on 2^nd September and evaluated by our professional advisors, Peter Brown and Partners (Chartered Quantity Surveyors) and GWP Architects. Based on their advice, Riverside Construction was selected as the recommended contractor for building the Sports and Community Centre. Although the tender price for the project was higher than anticipated, the Parish Council endorsed the engagement of Riverside Construction at their September meeting on the basis that they would meet the additional costs from their reserves.

Demolition of Existing Pavilion

The existing pavilion was demolished and the site cleared by Britaniacrest (at no charge), at the end of August. This ensured that the demolition was completed prior to the scheduled work on the sport pitch which was due to start in September. Prior to the demolition, the existing building was emptied and the services i.e. electricity and water terminated to make the site safe. A container was hired to store the equipment that was housed in the pavilion.

CLICK ON PICTURES BELOW TO ENLARGE 

Building Work – Foundations

Riverside Construction commenced work on the site on 26 October 2015 and has progressing according to their schedule. 

The work to date includes

• Site Set up and preparation of temporary entrance
• Preparation of access drive
• Preparation of piling mat, piling, ground beams and sub-structure blockwork
• Part installation of beam and block suspended floor (completion expected in January 2016)

Project Plan

The new Sports and Community Centre is progressing according to the schedule laid out by the contractors and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2nd quarter 2016.

Sports Pitch

Early in 2015, tenders were received against the TGMS specification to improve the football pitch with improved drainage, levelling and reseeding the turf. 4 tenders were received and evaluated by TGMS, who determined that Active Grounds Maintenance (Grasstex) offered the council the best value for money, and they were awarded the contract.

Although the refurbishment work only took a few weeks, it was carried out during September to allow the grass to re-establish itself over the following 12 months. The pitch is not usable and has been fenced off. Alternative arrangements have been made by the football clubs for the 2015/16 season. 

As the main drain from the pitch, passed close to the old pavilion, it has been temporarily disconnected to allow the work on the foundations for our new Sports Centre; this has led to some flooding on the pitch during the recent heavy rain. The drains will be soon reconnected and it is expected that the improved drainage of the pitch will be will become apparent. 

This work is being funded by Sports England who awarded the Parish Council with a grant of £50,000 in 2012.

M J Needham
Chairman Charlwood Parish Council

Charlwood Sports and Community Centre

Project Update - October 2015

Parish Council Announces

Following last Monday’s meeting of the Parish Council (19^th October 2015), we are pleased to announce that a resolution was passed to commence the building phase of the new Sports and Community Centre.

The Parish Council has raised over £570,000 towards this project from a wide variety of funding bodies. These include:

At the beginning of September, tenders were received from 4 reputable companies.

Tenders ranging from £633k to £699k were received from:-

●      Riverside Construction Company Ltd

●      Luke and Luke Construction

●      Whitley Builders Ltd

●      W H Hodder and Sons

Following detailed analysis of the Tenders, it was concluded that Riverside Construction had provided the most cost effective tender. Negotiations were held with them to ensure that they were fully compliant with the specification. Excluding the Provisional Sum for fitting out of the kitchen and Bar, Riverside’s fixed price Tender is £617,490 including a contingency sum of £13,000.

Cost savings, by specification changes, within the Tender have been identified and should reduce the contract value by £22,000, this would bring the total build costs down to £595,000.

After discussion, the councillors passed a resolution that they would place a contract with Riverside Construction Company at £617,490, but tasked them to work with the parish council to maximise potential cost savings by changes in specification which have been identified. As the contract is subject to the approval of a number of our partnership funders, this is being actively sought to enable a contract start date of 26^th October 2015.

Although our fund raising has been very successful and we have fallen short of the overall projected costs by £ 50,000.00 (Kitchen and Bar fit out and Professional Fees)

The main reasons for the shortfall is the increased workload and availability of local builders with the capability to undertake such work, this has reduced the competitiveness and increased costs.  Other significant increases in cost are the late requirement to provide an access road suitable for a fire tender and  numerous changes required to meet Part ‘L’ of the building regulations (necessary for public buildings) since the start of the Project in 2012

At the October Parish Council meeting, there was a debate on how the council should proceed. The three main alternatives considered were:

●      To delay the project to enable the shortfall in funding to be achieved. This ran the risk that we would lose the support of some of the major funders.

●      To return to the main funders to request additional funding for the project. This would be difficult as most partnership funders do not contemplate additional funding a project that has already started.

●      The other alternative was to commit the additional reserves from the Parish Council, which are adequate and do not jeopardise existing projects, and to continue fund raising to provide the Kitchen and Bar fit out and work with the builder to reduce the shortfall.

The Parish Council has voted by a majority to adopt the last of the above proposals.

It is estimated that the building contract will take approximately 30 weeks to complete and subject to weather, the building is expected to be complete by early June 2016.

Martin Needham

Chairman

CLICK ON PICTURES BELOW TO ENLARGE 

Existing pavilion on the recreation ground has been demolished...

· £50,000 from Sports England Inspired Facilities

Also the latest fund raising, Charlwood at Christmas, raised over £1,500 towards the project

This brings the total raised to date to over £471,000 against our target of £490,000. Although fundraising will continue to raise the outstanding partnership funding, we can now commence the building phase of the project starting with the preparation of tenders etc early in January 2015. It is hope that the building can be completed towards the end of the 3rd quarter of the year.

Martin Needham
Chairman - Charlwood Parish Council     

This grant demonstrates Surrey County Council’s support to this important project for the parish.
Since the Appeal Launch in December 2012, almost £10,000 has been raised by the local community fund raising events demonstrating the community support for the Pavilion. This together with the  £104,500 raised by grant funding brings the total towards the project of £214,689.
Although the task of raising this level of funding is not an insignificant, the council is pleased to see that further fund raising activities are planned for 2014 and they are also applying to a number of sources of potential grant funding bodies both local and national so that the building phase of the project can commence.
Current information regarding the appeal will be found on the community web site.
http://www.charlwoodandhookwood.co.uk/charlwood-pavilion.php
If you are able to support this project either by assisting with fund raising activities or by giving donations, please contact the fund raising committee

Martin Needham – Chairman,  Peter Barclay – Clerk

The day was a great success with 19 players taking part and many more coming along to support and enjoy a drink or two. After all players played a number of games the group stage of the tournament, eight players progressed to the knockout round. Hot favourite Joe “Milky” Woolley, who had won all of his previous results was dumped out of the tournament by an in-form Ross MacDonald who had won all of his fixtures in the group stages apart from the game against Joe! The CVFC manager Tim Hatt, progressed into the knockout stage after controversially playing “Negative defensive football” during his last group stage game. The fans wishes came true though when his abnormal style of play was broken up by The CVFC Reserve Team Manager Ash West. The young George Woolley took on Ben Sansberg in a tense two legs. The game was tied at 0-0 and went to penalties where the pressure was all too much for George and he rattled the crossbar with his last penalty. Very unlucky! James Stacey also progressed after convincingly beating Alex Sansberg over two legs.

The semi saw Ross take on Jay in a closely fought contest. Ross won both legs 1-0 to progress to the final. Ash took on Ben in the other Semi-final and Ash’s confident was shining as he convincingly beat the elder Sansberg brother to secure his place in the final. The final was a close game with both players showing their skills and fighting to the end. The result went in Ross’s favour which saw him win the title of “FIFA King” and take away the top prize of £50!

Craft Fayre in Aid of Pavilion Appeal

On Saturday 1th October, a Craft Fayre was held in the Parish Hall in aid of the rebuilding of the Charlwood Pavilion. There were 25 tables packed into the Parish Hall selling a wide range of exciting and original crafts made by local artists and craft people. There were fine examples of jewellery, arts, textiles, ceramics, artwork, handmade cards, cakes, jams and chutneys as well as many other inspiring and unusual gifts. It was a great opportunity for the purchase of interesting and unusual Christmas gifts

This year’s event proved to be most successful. Over 250 people attended the Craft Fayre only pausing in the tea room for a drink and sampling a piece of homemade cake before re-entering the main hall to continue their quest for further gifts etc. At the end, many were seen to be leaving loaded with bags full of their treasured purchases.

The Craft fayre made around £900 towards the pavilion Appeal bringing the total raised so far from Community Events to over £8,000 which is no mean feat. The overall total now raised to date is £210,000.

We would like to thank all the helpers that made this event possible, particularly Irene who masterminded this event and everyone who gave their support to this event.

JBTMT support Pavilion Appeal with a Grants totaling £100,000

The Parish Council is delighted to announce that they have been awarded grants for 2013 and 2014 totalling £100,000 by John Bristow Thomas Mason Trust towards the rebuilding of the Charlwood Pavilion for the benefit of our community. This brings the total money raised towards the rebuilding of the new pavilion including that committed by the Parish Council from its reserves and the grant from the Gatwick Airport Community Trust to £209,200.

The Council is also delighted to report that local community fund raising events have been exceptionally well supported and £7,200 has now been raised from the Appeal launch, Village Fetes, Plant sale and Skittles tournament. Further events are planned within our community including a Craft Fayre (12 Oct 13), Christmas Tree Lights, Race Night, Mini Olympics etc later this year.

John Bristow Thomas Mason Trust’s support to this important project marks a major step forward in the fund raising task as it is anticipated that it will encourage other grant funding trusts including a number of national sporting bodies to generously support this project and help us raise the additional £280,000 required.

Current information regarding the appeal will be found on the community web site.

http://www.charlwoodandhookwood.co.uk/charlwood-pavilion.php

The appeal committee is also looking for volunteers who can help with the fund raising activities. If you are able to support this project either by assisting with fund raising activities or by giving donations, please contact the clerk, Peter Barclay on charlwoodpc@btconnect.com.

Martin Needhamm (Chairman)    Peter Barclay (Clerk)

Appeal Launch for Charlwood Pavilion                          Penny Shoubridge

The Rebuilding Appeal for the Charlwood Pavilion was successfully launched on Saturday, 1st December.  Despite the chilly evening, over 80 guests from all corners of our parish wrapped up warmly and came to celebrate the event along with guests from neighbouring parishes.

Once everyone had been given a glass of mulled wine and light refreshments to ward off the cold evening, Cathy led festive carol singing to get us into the Christmas spirit.

Many people sponsored or dedicated a light on the Christmas tree and we can report that a fantastic £700 was raised towards the rebuilding appeal. The names of the all the sponsors will be put up in the pavilion until Twelfth Night.  We can also report that the appeal has also received a cheque for £1300 from this year’s Charlwood Village Fete, bringing the total raised so far to £2000.

Charlwood Parish Council needs to raise around £460,000 towards the cost of the new Pavilion. Although a significant proportion of this is expected to be raised from grant funding organisations outside the parish, there is a need for local fund raising. Whilst this is no small task in these currently financially restricted times, this is a challenge to which we are sure that our community will rise and become actively involved for the benefit of the Parish, themselves and future generations. 

With Carol Singing, Mulled Wine and the grand switch on of the lights on our first ever village Christmas tree, this is a community occasion not to be missed.
We would like each light to have a special meaning to someone, so why not sponsor or dedicate a light on our village Christmas Tree?

Parish Council Launch Appeal for the new Charlwood Pavilion

Although the task of raising this level of funding is not an insignificant, the council has identified a number of sources of potential grant funding bodies both local and national. You will recall that at the beginning of this year we were awarded with a grant of £50,000 to improve the football pitch and the surrounding area from Sports England. The Parish Council has already spent approximately £25,000 on the project and has committed a significant further funding from its reserves.

In addition to the above, there will be a number of initiatives to raise funds locally. The village fete this year started the process and has already raised £1,300 towards the project. Although the fund raising committee has a number of ideas on how money can be raised, we welcome additional suggestions and ideas from the community. The appeal committee is also looking for volunteers who can help with the fund raising activities.

To demonstrate the success of the fund raising activity, an appeal thermometer is about to be erected on the side of the existing Pavilion which will show the level of funds raised to date. Current information regarding the appeal will be found on the community web site.

http://www.charlwoodandhookwood.co.uk/charlwood-pavilion.php

If you are able to support this project either by assisting with fund raising activities or by giving donations, please advise the fund raising committee

Martin Needham (Chairman)   Peter Barclay (Clerk)

£50,000 Olympic legacy boost for 

Mole Valley sports playing field

Waterlogged pitches and cancelled matches will be a thing of the past at a Mole Valley sports club thanks to £50,000 of Olympic legacy funding from Sport England. The investment will be used for major drainage improvements at Charlwood Recreation Ground, home to Charlwood Village FC and Ifield Cricket Club.

The National Lottery funding, which guarantees the future of the pitch for decades, comes from the latest round of Sport England’s Protecting Playing Fields Olympic legacy fund.

Charlwood Parish Council has ambitious plans for the facility, where a third of football matches are currently lost to waterlogging. Once the pitch has been improved, councillors have plans to get more young people and women playing sport there and also want to build a new community pavilion. The Recreation Ground is the village’s only football and cricket ground and is also used for informal sporting activity and community events.

Sport England’s Chair, Richard Lewis, said: “This investment will create a lasting sporting legacy beyond the 2012 Games for Charlwood where generations will enjoy their first experience of sport.”

The project is among 61 across England to benefit from over £2 million of funding in the second round of Protecting Playing Fields, part of the Places People Play legacy programme that is bringing the inspiration and magic of a home Olympic and Paralympic Games into communities all over the country. The investments will bring disused playing fields back into use, improve existing sites or create new sports pitches.

Council Chairman Martin Needham said: ''This is wonderful news for our community. We now have a real prospect to provide the youngsters in our parish with sound all-weather resources for sports activities on our Recreation Ground. The Recreation Ground has been the  mainstay of outdoor activities within the community for well over 100 years and this grant combined with our new pavilion project will give our future generations great opportunities in sporting activities.''

The site is set to become a Queen Elizabeth II Field after Charlwood Parish Council agreed to dedicate the playing field in “perpetuity”. This is thanks to a partnership with Fields in Trust which is running the Queen Elizabeth II Fields Challenge as part of the programme to mark the Diamond Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Alison Moore-Gwyn, Chief Executive of Fields in Trust said: “This fantastic investment into grassroots facilities in England will help to ensure that neighbourhoods can participate in sporting activities at all levels for years to come. We are delighted that Charlwood playing field will be protected in perpetuity as part of the permanent legacy that the Queen Elizabeth II Fields Challenge will create in tribute to the Diamond Jubilee and the 2012 Olympics.”

Hundreds more playing fields are set to benefit from a further £6 million over the three remaining rounds of Protecting Playing Fields. The third round will open for bids in early summer.

Protecting Playing Fields builds on the work Sport England already does to safeguard playing fields as a statutory consultee on all planning applications affecting a sports playing field.

Planning Application for Pavilion Approved by Mole Valley District Council

Martin Needham – Chairman

Peter Barclay – Clerk to the Council