First and foremost I don’t need to remind you that we are an amateur club and entirely dependent on a magnificent team of volunteers, led by our Chairman Spike Stevens and his executive committee, who devote countless hours to looking after the best interests of our 1,400 members. Our rugby club is like a small business and to run it takes significant skill, patience and determination, operating at all times within the tightest financial restrictions. We could never realistically be, or want to be, a profitable enterprise; our challenge is to balance the books and to disperse the income we do have from subscriptions and other sources fairly to all sections of the club, and to manage the endless requirement for capital expenditure on the club house and grounds.

For more than 90 years our club has served the Amersham area, and has continued to evolve, raising the standard in so many areas, pioneering Mini rugby, and playing exciting, free-flowing rugby at every level that is as rewarding for the players as it is for the spectators. Needless to say this takes some doing and our investment in our teams and age groups is considerable. Incidentally we are sometimes asked whether we have some kind of professional first team. This is not the case and never has been. However we do pay our 1st team players’ expenses, relatively small sums which do not impact on the finances of the club, in the main coming from sponsors of the club who have specifically chosen to do this. The benefit of this system is that we can play a quality of rugby at a level in the leagues which means we are more likely to keep the best young players who come through Juniors and Colts, and of course we attract new players to the club. They certainly don’t come for the money, they come because of what we offer, a great team spirit, an attractive playing style, outstanding coaching and behind the scenes support such as physio and conditioning.

This year our three senior teams are going well, our 1st team are top of the league at the half way stage and we are in with a good shout of promotion to the National leagues. A recent drive to increase our playing numbers has given the 3rd XV a boost after a period of concern about availability. Our Minis and Juniors maintain their excellent standards and this season’s Colts are looking very promising with the best young players coming through into our senior teams. I do recommend you come up and watch a match if you haven’t already. We are playing some spectacular rugby.

Off the pitch we face a number of challenges. Financially we are in better shape than for some time, but we could change this position in a blink if we tackled some of the much needed capital expenditure. The club house is in urgent need of repairs and maintenance and that is a priority. We have to complete the tarmac resurfacing of the main car park. It will take as much as £50,000 to pay for this, fundraising starts very soon, so that we can hopefully do the job at the end of this season. We will never be able to maximise the potential revenue from functions in the club house unless we do this work. We successfully raised the money we needed for our bore hole and for our solar panels, in both cases an excellent investment that is paying handsome returns. So to put it simply we HAVE to do the car park, and it won’t happen without your help.

As you may know we have got planning permission to build an extension to the south side of the club house so that we can build a proper gym. This will also allow us to restructure the building and make the space for a kit shop in the club house, also badly needed. We can only start this project when we are sure that the funding is in place to complete the work.

We have always been good friends with Amersham Cricket Club and we are jointly proposing a new scheme which will mean your rugby club membership automatically qualifies you as a social member of the cricket club, and vice versa. This plan has to be approved by both clubs but we hope to have it in place by the start of the 2016 cricket season.

A big thank you of course to our many sponsors and advertisers. Liz Bradshaw has done a fantastic job bringing in lots of new local companies so do please use their products and services. That’s the least we can do, and in many cases they offer special deals to club members. See the website for details.

Of course, we need more volunteers. There are always jobs that need doing, some quite small, and we will be delighted to hear from you if you would like to get involved. Spike and his colleagues quite often get approached by members asking why ‘you’ don’t do this or that. The quick answer is the committee are all busy people with demanding day jobs and they do what they can, as soon as they can; the club belongs to all the members and the more people step up and help us out the more we will get done!

A Happy New Year to you all,

Best wishes,

Peter Osborne
President
Amersham & Chiltern RFC

posborne@osbornesamuel.com
Home address: Trafford House, Martinsend Lane, Great Missenden, Bucks HP16 9BH