DISBANDMENT OF UNITED CLUB

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23053, 22 June 1940, Page 10

DISBANDMENT OF UNITED CLUB

PROPOSAL TO BE PUT TO MEMBERS CRITICISM OF DOMAINS BOARD 4 Financial difficulty brought about by the claims upon its members of military service and the further decline in membership which can be expected next year is stated to be the reason for the proposal, which will be submitted to a general meeting of members next Wednesday, to disband the United Bowling, Tennis, and Croquet Club. An explanation of the position was given yesterday by the club secretary, Mr B. A. Barrer, who said that the Christchurch Domains Board had not only refused to reduce the club’s annual licence fee of £lO2, but had insisted, contrary to its usual practice in dealing with the club, on the payment of the coming year’s licence fee in advance. At the forthcoming meeting Dr. J. Guthrie (president of the tennis section) and Mr A. M. West (president of the bowling section) will move; “That in view of the declining membership of the tennis section aggravated by the war our finances in the coming season are likely to be heavily embarrassed. The Domains Board has been approached with a view to helping us in a policy of retrenchment, but we have found them entirely unsympathetic. It is therefore proposed that we realise our assets and pay our liabilities while still able to do so.” Appeal to Minister The principal lawn tennis club in the province and a leader in both bowling and croquet, the club has had a long struggle against financial difficulty since the depression. Since 1936, however, indebtedness to the extent of more than £450 has been wiped off. Mr Barrer said the club had paid its full rent continuously to the board since 1905, with the exception of a remission of £22 in 1938. For some years up to 1927 the rent was £6O a year, but for no other apparent reason than that the club was prosperous the rent was raised in 1928 to £B7 10s. When the club acquired an extra row of courts in the following year the rent was raised to £lO2. In 1932 Crown lessees obtained a reduction of 20 per cent, in rent, but owing to the definition in the legislation not including licensees the club was excluded from this benefit. Legal opinion obtained at the time was unfavourable, one of the reasons being that the club did not have exclusive rights to the ground. Yet members of the board, said Mr Barrer, had justified the high rental on the ground that the club was given exclusive rights over the property Last year the club anpealed to the. Minister for Internal Affairs (the Hon. W. E. Parry), but again the club was granted no relief. “Unfortunately the Minister gave representative? .of the club no opportunity of putting the position before him personally. While in Christchurch Mr Parry visited the club grounds with the chairman of the Domains Board, Mr H. Kitson. but the only hearing given to the club was an interview with a clerk from the Crown Lands Department,” said Mr Barren. ’ “Improvements Paid for by Club” “I suggest the Minister has? not been made cognisant of the fact that the improvements carried out on these grounds have been financed in I their entirety—for the last 24 years at least, and possibly for much longer than that—by the club. The Domains Board has done nothing whatever to make this ground the fine recreation area it is. If the Minister has been correctly informed of the full position I do not think he could have arrived at the decision- he did.” Mr Barrer said the value of the buildings and improvements was now £2975 13s 4d, after the writing off of depreciation at 2i per cent, annually since 1905. The United Club paid the highest rents of all sporting bodies using the park. Figures submitted to the board in 1938, and which were not disputed, named the following rentals:—Rugby £5 a ground, hockey £3 and £1 10s respectively for men’s and women’s grounds, basketball £l2 10s for 28 courts, cricket £4O in all, Christ’s College cricket ground £SO. Hagley Golf Club £SO, Polo Club £ls. The club is nearing the end of a financial year which began with a credit of £2B, and is expected to involve a loss of about £7O. In this last year the club lost 30 players, who went on active service, and paid no subscription, or only a nominal one, this involving a loss in revenue of about £IOO. It has been estimated that with the decline in membership which can be expected next season there will be a loss of £2OO on next year’s working. Attitude of Board At the end of last month the club received from the board a letter drawing attention to rent of £52 outstanding, and stating that unless this, together with the coming year’s licence •fee, was paid before the opening of the season that area of land occupied by the two rows of courts near Riccarton road would be resumed by the board, and a rental of £B7 a year charged for the remainder. The outstanding fee was paid by the club, said Mr Barrer, but the board was advised that it was impossible to meet the coming year’s fee in advance, because the income from subscriptions did not come to hand until the end of November. The two rows of courts which the board proposed to take over were those most recently laid down, and represented an investment of nearly £IOOO. The accompanying reduction of £ls was regarded as quite inadeauate, and would help the club very little. Recently, concluded Mr Barrer, he and. Mr R. Browning had interviewed Mr Kitson, but had found him entirely unsympathetic. Mr Kitson had suggested. that the board, took exception to the club "going behind the board’s hack” in annroaching the Minister for Internal Affairs, and had indicated that unless the club adopted a different attitude no concessions would be given. The club was free of debt and the committee considered it better to disband now. when it could meet its liabilities, than to carry on in circumstances in which it could not possibly pay its way. . COMMENT BY BOARD’S CHAIRMAN COMPARISON WITH CLUBS IN OTHER CENTRES When this report was submitted to the chairman of the Domains Board (Mr H. Kitson), he commented that the club paid only £lO2 rent for the "“The position is simply this; There is no tennis club in the Dominion which is charged such a cheap rent,” he said. “The club was asked some years ago to give up some parts of the ground which' it was not using. It would hot do so; that is, it refused to help itself, and now seems to expect the ratepayers of Christchurch and surrounding districts to help to pav for its sport. “In most other towns, such, for instance, as - Palmerston North and Wanganui, similar clubs have to pay twice as much, in rent as the United Club