The Clubhouse Project

The Railway Arches on Millwall Park

Big Screen Rugby @ The Arches

Page Last Updated : 5/6/2008

Its a long time (7 weeks) since this page was last updated but rest assured that many things have still been happening to move the project forward.

We have a couple of "big days" coming up soon.

First is our "Super Saturday" on the 14th June, where we will be showing our first live international rugby on the big screen at the clubhouse.

Its an early start for the New Zealand vs. England, followed immediately by Australia vs. Wales. Breakfast will be served by you'll need to let us know you're coming - last I heard, 36 are 'confirmed' on Matt's Facebook invite.

It really is a big day, as the postponed club AGM will be squeezed in before more big screen rugby in the afternoon, including England Saxons taking on the USA in the Trans-Atlantic "Churchill Cup".

Thanks largely to a substantial donation from Lindsey, the club is now the proud owner of a brand new gas barbecue which will get its first 'firing' during the afternoon to give us all our lunch and sustain us through the day.

A team of volunteers is already working to make sure everyone is comfortable and catered for, so please do come along if you can - the England game kicks off at 8.30am and the Ausralia/Wales game at around 10.30am.

Even if you can't get there for the games, please come along to the AGM at 1pm. Whether you are a new member or an old hand, we need to hear from you what the club is doing well and what we could do better. The club needs to set its priorities for next season and those standing for committee positions next year would also appreciate knowing that they have the support of lots of club members, not just a few, so come along to hear what they have to say and to cast your votes!

Secondly, later this month the Rugby Football Foundation will decide whether to support our grant & loan application totalling 56,000, to complete the work to the clubhouse. A lot of work, by several people, has gone into preparing our application. We are "cautiously optimistic".

Once again, I find myself thanking the generosity of club members who volunteered to stand as guarantors for the loan (without this the loan application would have failed at the first hurdle!). We will, of course, let you know as soon as we hear the result ourselves. If we get it, the 56K, plus our own funds already earmarked for the clubhouse, will be enough to substantially complete the building works needed but it will not give us "all the bells and whistles" so we will still need the help of all club members and friends to continue the fundraising efforts (and personal donations!) to get us all the things we would like to have.

Which brings me to the very, very important subject of "the bar".

Although we have been granted our licence, we cannot start using it until some relatively small bits of work have been completed. A start on this was made a couple of weekends ago (on "Sort out Saturday") but a relatively poor turnout that day meant we did not complete all we needed to.

Most importantly, the rules of the grant/loan application means that none of the 56K can be spent directly on "the bar" so the club still needs to build this ourselves. I have asked this before, and various people have suggested they could help (or knew someone who could) but nothing has happened yet. We need action on this now.

We could start taking money into the club over our bar if only someone would build it for us - we can provide the materials but we need a few people with reasonable woodworking skills to actually build the thing.

Alternatively, if we can't find someone within the club, we could hire a carpenter to build it for us - if you haven't yet contributed perhaps you could make a donation specifically towards the 350 or so this would cost? If you donate through Just Giving http://www.justgiving.com/mrfc then the Taxman will increase your donation by 28%!! Send me a copy of the receipt/confirmation email from Just Giving if you want your donation to be used specifically towards the building of the bar.

We can get it all fitted out for free once we actually have the wooden bar to fix the pumps etc onto - after that, its cheap, cold draught beer down at the clubhouse for at least the next 14 years! And you'll be helping the club by drinking it - its virtually your patriotic duty...

There are a few other things we still need (or could save us money) at the end of this message - if you can help with any of these please get in touch with me

Thanks for reading this far, and thanks for all the support I have received as Clubhouse Co-ordinator since November. We have already come further than many thought possible, and the end could now be coming into sight.

Cheers,

Mike Costin

The things we still need (or need help with) are...

Wheelie bins. We need a couple of these for the next few months, until we start with a regular council weekly rubbish collection. Do you know where we can get them cheaply?

A cooker hood. One of those stainless steel type things for catching the cooking fumes and directing them outside. Anyone happen to have or know of one spare?

Skylights. We have to replace our leaking sylights - can anyone save me the trouble of building our own?

Trophy cabinet. Lots of players want to see our trophies properly on display - can you provde the cabinet, or build one?

Screed. Anyone work for or with a construction company that might help us out with some free (or cheaper) flooring screed? If you don't ask, you don't get!

Jet washer. We will shortly need to scrub down all the brickwork before sealing it with clear brick sealant. A portable jet washer would be very useful to help with this... (we only need to borrow it)

Electronic door access. We will shortly get at least one electronic door lock (the type you touch a card against to unlock it). Soon your membership card will be one of these cards, and will be needed to gain access to the clubhouse bar. I have seen one for 120 (plus 5 per
card) but can anyone advise or find cheaper?

Is anyone leaving the country in the next few months (not just for holidays!)? If you are, email me and I'll tell you how you might be able to help.

Jersey framing. We can get frames (with perspex 'glass') 24" wide by 34" high - could you fix some of our jerseys so we can display them on the walls of the clubhouse? We have all the various tour jerseys and the previous designs for the main Millwall playing kit through the years - it would really help brighten up the clubhouse!

LOTS OF PHOTOS UPLOADED - CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Please do whatever you can to help raise funds for us - we really need your help now to keep up the momentum. In particular, make sure the club knows your current address so that you can take part in the upcoming "Grand Draw" which could, with your enthusiastic help, take the club a long way towards completing the project.

Cheers,
Mike Costin

UPDATES ON THE HOME PAGE

The top-left corner of the millwallrugby.com homepage now has a small clubhouse section, which will be used to report progress, targets and to let everyone know the date & time of up-coming volunteer sessions. Please check it whenever you visit the site and come along to help out whenever you can - there are always tasks to do even for people without many DIY skills. There is also a link to this page so that everyone can find out more detail if they want to.

FUNDING PROGRESS

Members of the club, friends and companies can all now donate direct to the Charity through the Just Giving option, which allows the tax to be claimed back and, in effect, means that the government adds an extra “free” 25% on to anything you donate, so please be generous now! We have already received (or been promised) over £12,000 through this route so things are starting to move finally. Its really easy and even small donations will help keep the ball rolling - Click here to see for yourself.

The club has completed its first ever successful application for funding. We received around £7,000 from the Peabody Trust/Local Network Fund. Whilst none of this money is going directly to the clubhouse project - it will fund rugby posts for Millwall Park, coaching courses for several of our enthusiastic players and a 10 week "start rugby" programme aimed mainly at reaching out to get more kids playing rugby - we are certain that the experience gained with this successful application will help greatly with future applications targetting the clubhouse.

A major local fund has already indicated that our project is exactly the sort of project they are seeking to support. Although Rick Jacobs steered the LNF application through, with help from others both within and outside the club itself, we still don't have anyone stepping forward to take charge of our other applications. Rick has been awarded Life Membership in recognition (saving him £450 [the normal cost of Life Membership] and allowing him to avoid all future matchday subs and annual membership fees).

Gareth Parkhill has also helped secure over £1,000 pounds worth of building supplies, fire extinguishers etc. which are now in the clubhouse. Gareth has also been awarded Life Membership in recognition of this.

Please, don't wait to be asked - your help is needed now so offer it now by emailing clubhouse@millwallrugby.com .

If you haven't yet filled out our Volunteer form (which over 110 of your fellow players & friends have already done!) then please do it now - just click here.

Cheers,
Mike Costin, Development Officer - Facilities

The plan below is a plan of what part of the insides could be. Its actually the electricity layout plan, but you can see the rooms etc. as well. No doubt it could change a little but this is close to the plan that will get submitted to building control.

LOTS OF PHOTOS UPLOADED - CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Arch 1 (most of the area to the left of the picture below) is by far the larger and will become our social area - including a designated 'family area' - but will be capable of being re-configured into smaller areas for meetings, a training room and other special events. The bar area is likely to be in the part of arch 1 that is to the right of the main entrance.

Arch 2 is much smaller than arch 1 and should contain our toilets and a kitchen area for preparation of the after-match meals and bar snacks at other times. There is a possibility it could be opened as a cafe during busy times on the park to provide affordable tea/coffee and snacks to spectators and other park users.

A few months ago, we set our "Phase One" target to raise £5,000. We have passed that already (the equivalent of £50 from each and every member of the club) though very few have actually done any fundraising so far - we need your ideas and your enthusiasm to reach this and future targets. Please email your fundraising ideas to clubhouse@millwallrugby.com but remember, we are looking for people to carry through their own ideas rather than just expecting a few people to do it all for them.

There is now an official Millwall Charity set up called the "Friends supporting Millwall RFC" which we hope will encourage donations from both large and small businesses as they can be offset against tax. We are asking all members and friends of the club to find out what help your employer could give - cash or practical help welcomed!

Vicky Shorrock, Lindsey Henshall, Danny van der Weijde and others have been taking photos as the work progresses and some of these will be posted here as soon as we can. Meanwhile, why not come down to take a look (and lend a hand, of course!). Contact clubhouse@millwallrugby.com to give us an idea of who will be coming when. Bring old clothes etc..

We have arches 1 & 2 (marked 0040 and 0050 on the plan below). As you can see from the plan below, Arch 1 (labelled 0400 on the diagram) is twice the depth (about 8 metres) of the other arches and extends behind Arch 2.

The lease is for 15 years. It is not automatically renewable (i.e. the council retains the right not to offer to renew it once the 15 years are up) although, of course, we expect the clubhouse to be such a success that removing it would become unthinkable!

THE TERMS OF THE LEASE ARE AVAILABLE FOR ALL MEMBERS TO READ - simply email mike@millwallrugby.com and ask for a copy.

If you want to help us on our way towards our target, you can make a donation via the Just Giving website [here] which will allow us to claim an extra 28% back from the taxman, at no cost to you.

We will also acknowledge all donations, and record the donors names' for all donations of £50 or greater for a board to be placed in the Clubhouse on completition.

We are also desperately short of money to complete the plan. The long and the short of it is that we aren't going to raise enough money to finish the clubhouse by simply running raffles etc. amongst ourselves. We must bring in money from outside as well and that falls into two groups - corporate money (or sponsorship) from the large companies nearby and grant money from 'funding bodies' like the RFU and the lottery. Because of the value of the work we can do ourselves, and donations of materials already promised, we have already effectively raised £130,000 towards our grand total of £240,000. But there are some things that we will simply have to pay for, so we need people to approach their employers (or rich friends!) to see if they could help (don't forget, we have a 'Friends of MRFC' charity they can donate to if it suits them better tax-wise). If your employers can't help, you can still 'do your bit' by helping us apply for some of the many grants that are out there for this sort of project.
Please, don't wait to be asked - your help is needed now so offer it now by emailing clubhouse@millwallrugby.com .