Court Upgrade Bulletin #1

View Bank Tennis Club Inc is incorporated in Victoria under the Associations Incorporation Act 1981 as an organisation for the purposes of providing tennis playing opportunities for residents of Viewbank and surrounding suburbs. We are tenants in a facility owned by the Banyule City Council, however the terms of the tenancy divide rather than share the costs of running the facility. Basically the land and clubhouse are leased to the View Bank Tennis Club for a nominal annual rent and financial responsibility for maintaining and improving the facilities is borne by the club. Although both parties have discrete roles it remains advantageous for both to work together and maintain robust, open communication on major initiatives.

Since starting out with Courts 1 and 2 and a tin-shed that served as the clubhouse in 1969, the club has consistently raised funds and held working bees to keep the facility at a high standard. Over the years, fund-raising and a combination of grants from the council and state government have enabled the following improvements to be completed:

* Clubhouse and Court 3 built around 1972
* Courts 4, 5 and 6 built in 1979 and lights installed in 2006
* Courts 7 and 8 built with lights in 1981
* Courts 1 and 2 rebuilt and lights installed in 1992.

After switching on the lights on Courts 4, 5 and 6, the Committee earmarked rebuilding the en-tout-cas surface and installation of lights on Court 3 - "the show court" - as the next project. Then came the imposition of Stage 3A water restrictions and a general attitudinal change to water conservation across the community. Tennis Victoria estimates that each en-tout-cas court needs 800,000 litres of water per annum to stay in good playing order. Even though en-tout-cas remains the preferred playing surface for many View Bank Tennis Club members, the Committee has decided to join the many other Melbourne-based clubs upgrading to a water-free playing surface. The Committee's preferred surface is a rapid draining, synthetic clay court system and it has given priority to rebuilding the oldest courts - Courts 3 to 8. Quotations obtained in 2007 revealed that rebuilding Courts 4, 5 and 6 would cost approximately $108,000, Courts 7 and 8 approximately $37,000 each and the upgrade of Court 3, including lights, approximately $50,000; a total of $232,000.

Summer 2006-07 saw the introduction of the toughest water restrictions in the history of the club and the 50 teams registered to play in the various competitions over the 2007 Autumn and Spring seasons were restricted to sharing four courts following the compulsory closure of the other four courts. This situation made the raising of additional funds most urgent and resulted in about one in ten members responding to the initiative to pay up to five years membership fees in advance as well as signing up additional sponsors - Bendigo Bank and Danaher's Mitre 10 - and staging major events such as Trivia Nights and the resumption of Annual Club Championships.

At the end of 2006-07, the club had accumulated nearly $70,000 for the resurfacing project and approached Banyule City Council for dollar-for-dollar funding in order to start one or more stages of the rebuild. Council had already allocated $363,000 to four other clubs in the municipality and indicated that mandatory technical support could not be promised to the View Bank Tennis Club during 2007-08. Mandatory technical support includes soil testing, a tendering for works process, verification of financial reports, arranging financial guarantees (where necessary), arranging contracts and finally booking the contractor, all of which can take a considerable amount of time. During June 2008 some of the courts funded under the 2007-08 Council budget were finally being rebuilt - apparently significant delays were experienced in the early days of the project in areas such as soil testing. A court rebuild necessitates the closure of that court for a two to three week period that will impact on a club's competition commitments if the rebuild cannot be arranged outside the competition season.

Every year the Committee seeks grant monies from the Council through its annual New Works and Services Program process. In view of the club's success in securing a $20,000 grant from the Victorian Government (SRV) in 2005 for the lights on Courts 4, 5 and 6 and significant financial assistance to build the Pam Gehan Pavilion a few years before that, the club has not been able to secure financial assistance from the Council in recent times. In November 2007, the club again applied for dollar-for-dollar funding based on a proposal to resurface Courts 4, 5 and 6 and one other (Court 3, 7 or 8). A decision by the Council is expected late June 2008.