Bob Clifford - BNHIVC Founder (Photo from 1985)

This is the story of how the social club Basingstoke & North Hampshire IVC was formed.  This version of the events leading to the creation of BNHIVC was produced by Bob Clifford in April 1999 using details from the club records for reference and some original photos. How it all began ... In May 1984, I moved to Reading from Norwich (where I had been Treasurer for Norwich & Norfolk IVC) to start a new job in Basingstoke. I had decided I would initially move to Reading as this was the nearest town with an IVC.  I reasoned that this would at least allow me to continue to have the type of social life I had enjoyed in Norwich. Shortly after arriving in Reading, I transferred my IVC membership from Norwich & Norfolk IVC to Reading IVC under the terms of the Association of IVCs Reciprocal Membership Scheme.

 

Moving to Basingstoke ... Early in 1985, due to issues with the commuting time from Reading to Basingstoke, I decided to move from Reading into Basingstoke. Before deciding where to live in Basingstoke, I visited the town one Saturday morning and purchased the local paper, the Basingstoke Gazette, to find out a bit more about the place. I found a section in the paper with several whole pages listing all the clubs in the local area. I was amazed to discover that a relatively small town like Basingstoke had so much to offer in terms of social, sports and leisure pursuits. The discovery of that clubs and societies page, convinced me that Basingstoke had excellent potential for building a new IVC in the town. Before 1985 there had been no history of IVC in the Basingstoke area, although a previous unsuccessful attempt had been made to start a club. The few people who were members of IVC in the Basingstoke area were members of either the nearby Reading, West Surrey or Southampton IVC Clubs.

 

Beechdown is the first club venue ... Before a proposal could be made to establish the Basingstoke IVC Group, I knew from my experiences with the setting up of the Norwich & Norfolk IVC, that a good quality venue would be needed for the weekly club night meeting.  I visited various local public houses and hotels around Basingstoke, but found none of them could offer the quality of facilities that I was looking for. One Saturday, through a chance recommendation, I found out about the Beechdown Squash and Badminton Club, which was located about 3 miles west of the Basingstoke town centre. The lead sounded good, so I arranged to visit Beechdown that same afternoon. The manager of the Beechdown Squash and Badminton Club at the time was as I recall a pleasant woman called Theo Johnson. Theo showed me around the club facilities, which I was very impressed with. Shortly after the first exploratory visit to Beechdown, I arranged a second Wednesday evening visit to the Club. This time it was with a friend, Bob Alexander, whom I had known in the Norwich & Norfolk IVC and who had also arrived in Basingstoke recently for a new career position. This second visit was to discuss terms for the use of the Beechdown Squash and Badminton Club with Theo. The terms we eventually agreed required the IVC to pay £50 pounds per year in advance to Beechdown to enable up to fifty members to meet in the club bar every Wednesday evening. Now all I needed was for someone to provide me with the money to put this deal together. During this time, although the Association of IVCs existed, it had not yet evolved any mechanisms to provide funds for the development of new clubs.  Therefore to achieve my new club, I needed to put together a business case for Reading IVC Committee to fund the development.

 

The finance proposal to Reading IVC ... Around early March 1985, Bob Alexander and I made a presentation to the Reading IVC Committee Meeting requesting help to start a Basingstoke IVC Group. The presentation was successful and they agreed to provide the initial finance of around £180 for publicity materials and venue costs etc for the new Basingstoke IVC Group. The responsibility for the development of the Basingstoke IVC Group was then handed over to myself and Hazel Tilbury (a West Surrey IVC member living in Basingstoke) to act as the Area Coordinators on the Reading IVC Committee.  Thus the Basingstoke IVC Group began life as a subsidiary of the Reading IVC (now Thames Valley IVC). The next job was to arrange some initial publicity in the Basingstoke area and the date and time of the new group's first Wednesday evening club night at the Beechdown Squash and Badminton Club. Beechdown and the first club night ... To get the Basingstoke IVC Group started, I needed to let the people of Basingstoke know about us.  However, at this time I did not have any publicity material to help publicise the Club.  Once again the Basingstoke Gazette came to the rescue by publishing a small 3 cm by one column article I submitted to them informing their readers of the date, time and venue of our first Club night. The first Basingstoke IVC Group Club Night was held in the bar at the Beechdown Squash and Badminton Club on Wednesday 8th May 1985.  That first Club night had as expected only Bob Alexander, Hazel Tilbury and myself plus a couple of new prospects in attendance but we had started and that was what counted. Within a couple of months it was agreed with the Reading IVC Committee that the club night for Basingstoke should be moved to a Tuesday evening.  This was to enable the members and Committee of Reading IVC to attend the Basingstoke IVC Group Club Night on Tuesday evenings and their own club night in Reading on Wednesday evenings. Over the summer of 1985, the Club grew very slowly, mostly by word of mouth.  By about September 1985, there were around 10 members of the Basingstoke IVC Group.  We decided around that time that if we were to survive long term, we needed to at least double the number of members in the Basingstoke IVC Group fairly quickly.   So I made plans with the other members to mount a major publicity drive with posters and leaflets in October and November 1985. The Big Publicity Drive (Oct/Nov 1985) ... I spent much of September 1985 involved in making up lots of  large A2 and A3 sized posters plus the first of our publicity leaflet designs.  These publicity materials were going to be used on a couple of 6 ft by 4 ft display boards I had booked at the Basingstoke Central Library for the last three weeks of October 1985. A key message of this display material was to get prospective members to pick up a leaflet and attend a special New Members Evening.  The New Members Evening was booked at the Beechdown Squash and Badminton Club for Thursday 7th November 1985. The New Members Evening at Beechdown was a resounding success with around 30 prospective members attending and many of them signing up on the night.  The publicity drive had helped Basingstoke IVC Group grow rapidly to about 25 members by the beginning of 1986 and around 40 members by the second half of 1986. With sufficient people now being involved with the group, it was time to elect our first Committee to manage the affairs of the Basingstoke IVC Group.