Help save the Crystal Palace One O'Clock Club - Petition

[BeckenhamTown.us]

Please help save the fabulous mother and baby Crystal Palace One O'Clock Club, which for years and years has been used by parents and toddlers from all areas locally. Please sign the petition & share it on Twitter and Facebook with friends http://is.gd/LlWvxy

I found it a great place as a Dad to take my two tiny daughters many years ago and would hate to see other new parents deprived. Bromley MyTime under Bromley Council needs to invest in the building and resources. It's a great place for all on the edge of Crystal Palace Park.

Many thanks :-)

[Saffron]

I love the CP 1 O'clock Club, and I'm disgusted by the way Bromley MyTime Active appears to be handling this.

For the past eight years, the club has been operated by Mytime Active, the Bromley-based provider of leisure facilities and a social enterprise and charity.

Mytime Active is a leading, Bromley-based social enterprise which provides leisure and community services. In its nine year history, the charitable trust has invested more than ?16m in facilities and services.

During the same period, it has operated the One O'Clock Club (OOCC), a community-led play centre for under 5's, at Crystal Palace. Whilst it has maintained this facility and service, it has invested nothing in those nine years.

At the beginning of 2012, it announced that 'the building was dilapidated' and that the club would be tendered. (Other options/alternatives uses will be considered)

Mytime Active continues to invest elsewhere. It recently invested ?1m in its first month of taking on Birmingham City Council's public golf courses.

Mytime Active claims it does not want to close the club, a popular and well-utilised facility, which has been in existence for nearly 40 years. The company has made it clear that the OOCC is not 'sustainable' to them. It has never made a profit in those nine years.

Why is this charitable trust- with an apparent remit to provide service in the community and in possession of retained funds of ?3.5m- continuing to neglect this valuable community resource?

[pebbles]

Yes please please sign. I couldn't have survived without it with my two when they were younger.

I'm 35 years old and my Mother used to take my brothers and me there as well - please support

[BeckenhamTown.us]

People forget how long it's been going and the thousands of young parents and toddlers it's helped. Why pitch it out to anyone else, it does a great job and MyTime Bromley should invest in it and not be looking to bring in from outside the local area other less just ventures.

[Saffron]

The issue that MyTime has failed to invest in the CP 1 O'clock Club for years and now wants to tender it actually seems tantamount to fraud to me. Basically, they let a valuable community resource fall into disrepair so they could reap the benefits of tendering it out to another organisation. At the very least surely it's contractual nonfeasance. Did they not have a common law obligation for upkeep of the Club when they accepted an operational role?