Warlingham Sports Club AGM
Chairman’s Report – AGM 2025
The past year has been an exciting and challenging one in equal measure. If you look around the club today you will see we have been able to make improvements, which will benefit our members for many years to come.
From my perspective it has been the busiest and most demanding year of my 11 years as chairman and I am very proud of what we have been able to achieve within the financial constraints we set at the outset. The development would not have been possible without a fantastic team effort. It was built on strong working relationships between all the parties involved. Although he hasn’t been involved since construction started, Ian Allchin played a vital pioneering role: his skill and sheer hard work won us access to over £800,000 of external funding without which the project would not have gone ahead. Jon and Dan deserve a special mention for flexibly coordinating the various parties on a daily basis to ensure the project ran smoothly and we achieved the best possible outcome for our members.
On the development there are still a few remedial loose ends to be completed but the new facilities are now in use and we have been able to focus on further improvements, as follows:
New Bi Fold doors to the main function hall
New showers/toilets/floor in old changing rooms
Redecoration of the bar and function hall
Renovation and LED replacement of the Astro floodlights
Replace showers/ceilings and ensure legionnaires mitigation at Verdayne (yet to be scheduled)
Install phase 3 electricity supply to squash courts to allow replacement of gas heaters with electric alternative
New white lining to car park (we hope to resurface in the near future)
These further improvements have been financed by a combination of WSC, WFC and WSRC. So much has been achieved this year and the club remains on a stable financial footing thanks to the excellent stewardship of our treasurer, Paul Masters.
We do now need to deliver on our commitments to our grant providers and I am pleased to say that the majority of the community initiatives we reported last year have continued with the exception of the All Stars junior cricket, which is disappointing but hopefully will be back soon.
We have done much to promote our facilities to the local community through the CR magazines, Parish News, Warlingham Fair (thank you Rosie & Dan) and have two community wellbeing groups using the hall on Mondays and Tuesdays. We have also offered the facility to the NHS Blood Transfusion service and await their reply. We hope to expand usage over the coming months now work on all the different aspects is virtually complete.
Turning to the sport, it has also been a challenging year, with the weather disrupting much of the football season and now the prolonged dry spell making life difficult. Dan deserves another special mention for all his work on the ground despite the extra burden of the development challenges.
As I draw to a close I must thank everybody involved with the club for getting us through this year. Everybody has had to compromise in some way as the improvements have been taking place and it really has been a great team effort.
Finally it is with some sadness that we say goodbye to Denham Earl following his move to pastures new. He leaves us with our sincere thanks for all he has contributed over the past 65+ years and he will always be welcome at WSC. The extent and longevity of his involvement is unprecedented and to suggest he has been a club stalwart is very much understating the case. We wish both Denham and Lesley every happiness in their new surroundings.
S J Rolfe
Chairman