Demise or Survival of The Coral Beach Club

The Coral Beach Club –
               Demise or Survival

Background.

        In 2008, the Owners of the Coral Beach Club in Bermuda assigned the property and the management of the Club and Horizons to a New York investment and development group, known as Brickman, on a two hundred year lease basis. Sadly, this group got caught up in the financial woes of 2008 and subsequent years and they were neither able to develop the property, as planned, nor were they able to meet their obligations. In 2012 it was feared that the Club might close forever, to the great chagrin of members and the many players from abroad who would visit Bermuda in the Autumn for the “November Tennis Tournament”.  Indeed it was further feared that this might be the last tournament.

    Robin Blackburne, who was the tournament director, composed and read this piece at the Prizegiving Gala Dinner on Saturday 3 November.  Happily, at the very end of 2013, a new group took over the leasehold and the future of this great Club seems more certain

Robin Blackburne   - Saturday 3 November 2012

With apologies and thanks to W. Shakespeare and King Hamlet

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to linger

On for barely eight and twenty days.

Or face the music, and thus close the Club forever.

Thereby causing pain and sadness to the many

Members who have loved their Coral Beach so well.

The history of these thirty acres rings

A hundred bells and memories for players

Like all of us tonight who mourn the fate

Of this dear Club we cherish more than others know.

How sad the Brickman partnership has failed

To keep alive that e’re enduring flame

Of tennis on these courts of verdant clay.

The fun and laughter as the games progress

Towards the semi-final matches fought

With shocking competition oft displayed

Between contestants eager to succeed

And thereby reach the final round.

And, with some luck, perhaps a prize of silver

Or just a tankard made of bronze and lead.

But, now the Championships are sadly over,

What does the future hold for coming years ?

Can this short week define the very end

Of such a grand tradition steeped in sweat

And blood and tears and friendships new and old.

 But wait – perchance to dream there may be light

At yond far end of Paget’s darkest tunnel.

Who knows, the clouds may lift to soon reveal

A benefactor with the means to save

This dear beloved piece of land and sea.

‘Tis true that nature doth abhor a vacuum.

Perhaps that here tonight there is a man

Who has the will to save this once great club.

May he come forth and show us his true colours

Or form a syndicate to raise the cash this month.

We could not bear these walls and lawns be doomed

Or see a bailiff’s poster on the gate

Excluding us from entry to the grounds

Or passage to the beach and turquoise sea.

Oh how we would so badly miss

The blue-striped towels and leaking showers

And all the little things we hold so dear.

So let us hope that in the end all will be well indeed.

Perhaps the worthy Sweda Bank will feel compassion’s need

And write the loan down to a sum that if we pass around

The hat to members here tonight we might not run aground

Robin Blackburne   3 November 2012