Buckhurst Hill Football Club

Welcome

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the first edition of our quarterly Club newsletter. This will go to all managers, coaches and parents of the Club, so hopefully we have all the correct email addresses for you all.

As an introduction I thought it would be useful to provide a brief history of the Club, which proudly achieved our 25th Anniversary in 2010.

The Club was founded in 1985 by Richard Brand and Alfie Sacre with the aim of providing football for the youth of Buckhurst Hill. In 2000 Buckhurst Hill Junior Sports Club purchased the current site in Roding Lane. In 2001, with the aid of lottery grants and funding, the Club House was built.

The Club consists of two distinct entities, both of which have their own finances and governance – the Sports Club is a registered charity and holds the mortgage for the purchase of the site and the Football Club which funds the Sports Club. Appointed Trustees make all major decisions of the Sports Club. Current Trustees are Ray Sherrin, Ken Richbell, Jan Rooney, Simon Cornwell and Martin Reeves.

The Sports Club has no direct income. The Football Club makes regular donations to the Sports Club to cover its expenses which is mainly the mortgage and bills. General income and expenditure flows through the Football Club.

So let’s meet the team:

Management Committee:
Ray Sherrin – President
Richard Brand – Vice President
Simon Cornwell – Chairman
Jo Parman – Secretary
Martin Reeves – Treasurer
Craig Sherrin – Mini Soccer Representative
Neil Reeve – Youth Academy representative
Ben Cooper – Senior Representative

The committee’s role is to look after the day to day running of the Club, for the benefit of your children and give up hours of their own time in order to achieve this.

We then have a board of Trustees, who are the guardians of the Club, who the Committee need to update, and gain authority for any major financial decisions.

Now that’s the introductions out of the way, please feel free to talk to anyone of us at any time, either by phone or email, or at the ground at weekends.

Our Plans:
You will hear more of those over the coming months and in future editions, plus updates from other members of the team.

The Club has enjoyed great success, and is proud of its achievements, but we now need to look at the future, creating a lasting legacy in the community.

As you are aware, we have recently extended our player facilities with the lease of the land next door from our friends at Pelly House Sports & Social Club.

Many of our sides have had the benefit of playing games there this season, and has been a big help for our Saturday morning training sessions, with our mini kickers, and mini soccer teams.

Our plan is for this to become our mini soccer academy, and we will look at refurbishing or rebuilding its current Clubhouse, (changing room facilities) and building a bridge (which we have now received planning permission) to gain access between our two grounds across the river.

We also have exciting plans within the main ground, which include:
Extension of the Clubhouse, additional changing rooms, bar etc.

Barriers around the pitches which will be permanent and enable business is to advertise.

Build a stand in front of the main pitch, which will be a must if our senior first team continue with their success and gain promotion to the Essex Senior League.

These are ambitions that will require a lot of hard work and dedication, and more importantly a considerable amount of funding, which in the current climate is one hell of a challenge. However as a group we feel the time is right and the Club is ideally positioned, coupled with the success we have achieved we want to move to the next level.

How do we get the funding?
As a Club our cash resources are limited, and we rely on our registration fees, and money through our Club house T-Bar, which is used to run the Club i.e. mortgage, rates, lighting, water, ground maintenance, ground repairs, grounds man, and referee’s etc., so to enable us to achieve our goals, the funding needs to come from outside the Club.

We are in discussions with relevant funding organisations, which are lengthy and time consuming, but they are excited about our vision, and discussions are progressing nicely, but there are no guarantees.

Over to you and how can you help?
I would be happy to talk to anyone in the strictest of confidence who would like to assist in anyway.

This could be from donations to help support or projects, expertise in areas we are looking to develop, so if you are a professional in any buildingconstruction or engineering company, or any business or individual that can provide assistance I would welcome the opportunity to hear from you, or if you could provide some form of sponsorship, and we can use advertising around the ground or website to have your company name on. However large or small your contribution maybe, every little bit helps, to enable you and your children to be involved in a Club to be proud of.

I look forward to catching up with you and in the near future, and updating you on our progress which will also include updates on our team’s success and achievements, and some comments from other members of the Management team in the next issue.

Also please feel free to drop me a line on any ideas you would like to see in our newsletter going forward

Simon