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CLUB GROUNDS

BOOKING BISC GROUNDS FOR MEMBERS

Grass Areas, Courts, AGP, Dressing Rooms  - Bookings for all parts of Ironsides Rugby, BIFC and BICC  and booking changes & amendments

Grounds Booking Requests by Constituent Sections should ALL be directed through the relevant BISOL Ground Committee Representative:

Senior Rugby - Wendy Price  or Tony Szulc  

Junior Rugby - Richard Cotgrove

Football - Mick Peddle

Cricket/Misc - Eric Ferebee

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1. Requests from those named above

a) Where the GC agree the booking will not cause excessive wear on the grass

b) Eric Ferebee or Richard Cotgrove will check the availability via the Ground Usage calendar maintained by David GH

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2. Where charges are to be incurred these will be agreed with the Club Chairman and then be authorised through the Section Treasurer.  

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3. The Section Ground Committee Representative will advise acceptance or otherwise and confirm the usage, booking and charges as appropriate.

All bookings will be noted in the club calendar, until on the calendar use of the facilities is neither accepted nor authorised.


  • The Ground Committee determine the start/finish dates for the regular sports at the Club, e.g. rugby, cricket, football, seasons etc. these will be shown on the calendar.

  • Requests from third party applicants will be referred to the Club Chairman: David Gardiner- Hill 

  • Enquiries relating to the club room should be directed to Alan Snow the Club Manager

  • All use of the BISOL facilities are subject to BISOL’s Terms and Conditions of Use  (BISC Constitution - Regulations) which apply to all users of BISG.  ALL Booking leaders must be familiar with these T&Cs

  • Bookings are always subject to cancellation due to weather or ground conditions.

Eric Ferebee - Ground Committee Chair - BISOL

MAKING BEST USE OF OUR SPORTS GROUND

Prioritisation between users - Constituent Sections and other thrid parties

The Sections would all love to have sole use of the Sports Ground, they would be less keen on paying the bills.  Prioritisation has generally occured on a 'first come, first served basis'  The cricket ground was the original sports facility on the site. The Premium Football pitch was added.  Rugby trained on the outfield and played at Garratt Green, as the Rugby Section grew the Artificial Pitch was built specifically to move rugby training off the outfield to avoid the damage caused. 

With regard to the underlying topic of the maintenance of the BISG outfield in a reasonable state of repair. 
There are a number of issues:

  1. enabling all users to use the ground throughout the sporting seasons.

  2. commercial position and ensuring it is not badly damaged by unwise use and overuse.

  3. the need for capital expenditure in eg. watering systems to promote growth in the summer months.

  4. the massive cost of repairing the grounds when the turf is badly damaged (eg. £20k in one evening)

  5. The loss of income from unusable facilites (eg. ADD £30k to damage in 4.)


We have long term unbreakable commercial commitments to third parties which were agreed by all sections. The 35 year lease to Hornsby House means we are committed to their use of the grass, part of the reason we accepted this commitment was that small kids have very low impact on the grass compared to adult players. HHS staff are also extremely careful not to allow damage to the pitch in bad weather.

Other users have shorter term Agreements, eg. year to year but hope to be involved longer term.  They are a valuable source of income to the club, please support and encourage our paying guests.


Recent past experience is that the outfield is very sensitive to heavy use (eg. scrum practice and shuttle running),  massive damage sometimes can be caused on only one evening. The ground tends to collapse into a quagmire in the autumn and then be out of bounds for everyone.  On top of massive repair costs, this can prevent use by everyone until the following summer, which loses BISC significant income.

To allocate the ground fragility and overuse problem mainly to our very beneficial relationship with HHS is rather unreasonable. It is also down to capital investment eg. Watering systems

A few years ago the Rugby Section were delighted to accept the AGP as a long term solution to ALL Senior Rugby training needs and agreed that this would remove the need for adult players to train on the grass at all, once AGP completed Senior Rugby training rights were transferred to the AGP Only.  This was noted in the Objects of the Club, in the BISC Constitution.  Any amendments to this MUST be agreed by UNANIMITY of ALL the Constituent Sections. (see below)

In the years since then, The BISC Grounds Committee have been very reasonable in allowing  additional access to the outfield in controlled way, and only whilst ground condition allows, particularly for the Rugby Ladies who have a controlled responsible approach, avoid damaging the surface, and obey the instructions of the Grounds Committee.

A number of us have worked very hard previously to create a protocol by which senior men’s rugby could access sensitive areas of the grass and use it in a way that would avoid damage, unfortunately this always seems to lead to both overuse, unwise use (eg. in the rain) and simply using areas from which excluded.

Your Players Representatives are always very happy to discuss such issues, most of these issues should be raised in the first instance with the appropriate section representative to the BISC Grounds Committee or the Rugby Reps to BISC, you are always welcome to raise it with the BISC Chairman directly if you don’t know who is responsible or feel frustrated.

THE OBJECTS OF THE CLUB

Our mutual agreement between the sections made in 2010

These are the guiding words your committee are bound by in delivering service to the sections.


Please see the original of the Constitution and look at this in context if you want to get into the legals.

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REMEMBER, this can only be changed by UNANIMITY of ALL THE SECTIONS:


  • The object of the club is to provide facilities and promote participation in the amateur sports of rugby union football, cricket and association football at the BISG.

  • the additional objects of the Club shall be to promote other sports and to foster social relationships amongst members, their families , friends and the local community in a non-discriminatory and inclusive basis.

  • The three sports of Rugby Union Football, Cricket and Association Football represent the essence of the Club and accordingly they are specifically enshrined in the constitution. The Club shall therefore use its reasonable endeavours to:

  • provide a senior football pitch at least once every weekend during the football season to a suitable standard for playing tier 7 senior football or its equivalent if replaced;

  • provide a senior cricket pitch at least once every weekend during the cricket season to a suitable standard for playing Surrey Championship cricket or its equivalent if replaced;

  • provide a senior training area at least twice a week during the rugby season in the evenings to a suitable standard for rugby football training; [Note: The AGP now provides for this on Tues and Thurs evening]

  • provide a playing area at least once a week on Sunday morning during the rugby season to a suitable standard for mini rugby training;

  • provide playing areas for junior cricket and football [there is no Junior Football yet]. 

  • [Note: Artificial training area now built] It is acknowledged that until a high quality artificial training area can be built off the cricket pitch that II. and III. are mutually exclusive and the club shall therefore use its reasonable endeavours to find a solution, ideally through building a high quality artificial training area which shall particularly be used to save the outfield surface during wet or other inclement weather when the ground and turf may get damaged.

  • The Club shall use its reasonable endeavours to maintain access to facilities and sports for its members at an affordable level. Specifically, development and improvement of the facilities shall not be at the expense of affordability. The fees charged to the Sections shall not increase as a result of optional developments and improvements. Any essential works shall be effected without increasing fees wherever possible.

  • In considering any proposed development or improvement of the Club’s facilities, consideration shall be given first to complying with the recommendations and guidelines of the governing bodies of Rugby Football, Cricket and Association Football where the relevant Section requests it.

  • The Club shall in general give priority to the use of its facilities to Rugby Football, Cricket and Association Football at both adult and junior level and this must be considered alongside any commercial benefit from other uses.

  • Notwithstanding these objects - where the Management Committee decides that it can offer the facilities of the club to other users for a period of time, which does not in the view of the Management Committee overly interfere with the current or foreseeable requirements under these Rules, the Management Committee may make such commitments and long term agreements and they may not be over-ridden by these Rules.

Grounds: Services
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