Tennis players give back to community
June 25th, 2010Things are looking up in the ongoing saga surrounding the tender to manage the City of Sydney’s tennis courts (for background information see my previous post on this matter). At the last Council meeting a motion was passed to restart the tender process with criteria that would capture the true benefit to the community of each operator.
In addition to this, I had the pleasure on Friday the 18th of June of presenting a cheque for $2500 from the Rushcutters Bay tennis community to Plunkett Street School (see image). The
money was able to go to this very deserving school as a result of wonderful generosity Francis Douglas QC and the Rushcutters Bay tennis community.
When the initial tender recomendation was presented to Council I sought legal advice from Francis Douglas QC to confirm whether or not the recommended applicant had breached tendering guidelines. Advice from QC’s is generally not cheap so some generous members of the Rushcutters Bay community pitched in $2500 to pay for the advice in the name of helping to achieve a fair outcome for their much loved local tennis centre operator.
The advice confirmed my suspicion that the tender guidelines had indeed been breached and this had the desired effect of prompting Council to investigate, and ultimately restart, the tender process. When I asked Mr Douglas to name his fee he told me instead of paying him to donate the money raised to a cause that would assist disadvantaged children. I asked the community to nominate a worthy recipient. As the children of Plunkett Street School had been receiving free court time and coaching at Rushcutters Bay Tennis Centre for the last 15 years the community thought it fitting that the money should go to that school.
The Plunkett Street School and myself greatly appreciate the generosity of the Rushcutters Bay tennis community. We will keenly look forward to re-evaluating the tenders to run the City’s tennis courts once criteria that recognise the input to the community of each operator have been finalised.
