Statement issued specifically to members of ARC by Centre Manager Tom Vinall at 1600 on 03/04/20
Dear Members,
I wanted to write to you all regarding your ARC membership subscription over the coming weeks and give you an update on the current financial situation for ARC and the measures we are taking to try to ensure the future of the centre.
As you hopefully already know, ARC is run as a not for profit charity. During this period of closure and uncertainty we like many other businesses are facing significant financial challenges. Whilst our employed staff have all been furloughed as part of the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme we still face significant costs as a business. After furloughing all staff and cutting any unnecessary costs we are still left with monthly outgoings of close to £2000 – these costs include backdated business rates, floodlight maintenance contract, insurance, IT costs, electricity standing charge, phone bills and bank fees.
As well as facing significant loss of profits from cancelled events such as our annual Tennis tournament and coaching programme we will unfortunately also not qualify for any of the government SME grants as our ratable value is above £51k. We have however been busy this week applying for several business interruption grants for the leisure sector provided by Sport England and others.
We would therefore like to say a huge thank you to all those members who have continued to pay their monthly subscription despite the centre being closed. During this extremely uncertain time we would ask that if you are able to, you continue to pay your membership subscription through this period to support ARC and help us to continue to offer our fantastic facilities and services after the Covid-19 lockdown period has ended.
We do of course realise that for many of our members this may also be an extremely difficult time financially. In recognition of this we are offering the option to pause your membership subscription temporarily, meaning that no payment will be taken until the centre has re-opened. If you would like to pause your subscription please contact me via email and I’ll be happy to arrange this for you. Pausing rather than cancelling your membership will be far simpler for both you and us when the time comes to re-open.
Please rest assured that the centre will re-open immediately as soon as Government advice allows us to do so.
The whole team here at ARC would like to send you our warmest wishes and sympathies at this difficult and uncertain time.
If you have any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to contact me – we’ll hope to see you all back on the courts raring to go whenever circumstance allows.
Kind Regards
Tom Vinall
Centre Manager & Head Coach