Full disclosure - I represent the Volleyball club.  This piece does not claim to be neutral or balanced it is simply copy/pasted from my report to the Volleyball club.  The Focus Group does not have many Centre Users represented and would like more.  Maybe your sport/association should be there.

A few quick notes from the meeting.

DC Leisure seem to be in this for the long term.  Presumably they are making a profit from running the centre(s).  Certainly the council seem happy about how it is being run.

One thing I was very pleased to hear is that the council and DC Leisure have signed a letter of intent, and are in final detail negotiations on extending the contract to March 09.  The original reprieve of the LKC was to April this year.  It seems a racing certainty that the centre will remain open beyond that.  The council is not allowed to extend the contract beyond March 09 because of the coming poliitcal changes in Wiltshire.

The long term future for sport in the East of the region is tied up with the political changes covering the conversion of Wiltshire to a single large authority.  The intent is to construct a new sports centre to serve this side of the county.  No work can be done on that project at the moment because the current council is legally forbidden from entering into any significant agreements that will bind the new unitary authority.  So, in reality, nothing is likely to change for a couple of years.  There is no point in asking questions like - "Where will it be?"  They don't know and so they can't say.

Because the long term plan is for a new centre; LKC will not have significant sums spent on the building.  Despite that they have been able to make imporvements over the past year, more are planned and they are still spending less than NWLL managed to spend.

I mentioned the permanent problem we have with the post fixings and suggested that it really needed attacking with a hand drill to loosen the dirt in the holes and then hoovering or picking out.

I also mentioned that the mens showers seem to lose pressure and that the teams closing up the centre were somtimes a bit overzealous with turning off the lights.  Could they check that no-one is actually in the shower when they turn the lighting out.

I also mentioned the problems with the curtain.  No-one else likes it much either.  Beverley (the Tae-Kwon-Do) instructor is no more keen on having a ball roll under her feet than we would be.  Balls leaking round the curtain is a safety issue for them as well as us.  The Badminton club reported being scheduled in the hall alongside indoor cricket.  The nature of a cricket ball seems to make that pretty dangerous. 

Next meeting probably 24th April 2008.