Lockleaze's CA Club re-opens

February 13 2019
Lockleaze's CA Club re-opens

Lockleaze’s CA Club closed its doors for the last time in the early hours of New Years Day 2017. In the ensuing time it has been evident that the club served a very real need in Lockleaze.

The reasons for its closure are well documented and have been printed on our pages before.

Following a packed public meeting held at The Hub in early summer the move to re-open it gathered pace. Meetings were held with Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust to help facilitate matters and the club finally re-opened just before Christmas, on December 15th.

Having taken advice from other similar clubs a decision was taken to open the social club side of things first, this way revenue will be earned which can be used to feed the charity side of things. A name change to Lockleaze Family Community Club was decided on as it is better to have no credit history than the poor credit history that the LCA Club held.

To date over 400 members have joined. Membership costs £15 per year or £10 per year for over 60s, and in a change from the old CA Club you do not have to be resident in Lockleaze to become a member; there is even a member from as far away as Peterborough! To join you have to be nominated by two members and have your name placed on the board in the club for two days. After this you are deemed to be a member.

The funds from this years memberships were urgently required as there were outstanding bills that had to be settled before they could re-open: £1,000 on fire alarms, £1,500 on solicitors bills, £3,000 on a calling system, £983 for fridges, £174 for a new till, £2,600 on security alarms, and a two year licence which cost £520.

The club is open from 2-11.30pm on Fridays, 12-11.30pm on Saturdays, and 12-10.30pm on Sundays. Midweek opening is anticipated but this is dependent on Darts and Skittles teams coming forward. Weekend entertainment is now fully booked until July.

The new committee is: Chair Kevin Plenty, Vice-Chair Ian Bell, Secretary Julie Tabber, Treasurer Tom Tabber, Heidi Jennings, Sandy-Sharon Malcolm, Roger Hughes, Andy & Lisa Twilley, Mark Ward and Ian Cole.

The charity name will eventually be changed once the trustees are all sorted out. At the moment the new committee has no access to the old LCA bank accounts.

The Committee would like to place on record their thanks to Romney House and UWE for their donations of furniture.

Member Mike Elliott says, “it is brilliant to have it back open and see a lot of people I haven’t seen for ages. They have done a great job to get it open. I hope everybody backs it, come and have a look, the more the merrier”.