Asset and Facilities Management
Take a closer look at your club, does the situation below sound familiar?
Karen is the Chairperson of a local tennis club which has approximately 200 members with six courts and a small club house. The club is an Incorporated Society and Karen, along with six other committee members are all volunteers. The committee is a committed group who have become friends and are all passionate about tennis. The committee all have day jobs.
The clubhouse is now over 40 years old, was built in the 1970's and although some modifications were completed in the 1980's, the building and facilities are tired and outdated. The six courts are all astroturf and were last replaced 15 years ago, funded 100% by external funders.
Karen knows she has to budget for maintenance for the club, but doesn't know where to start and is struggling for time. Karen knows the committee also don't have the expertise or time and why should they; let them do what they love doing.
This section and table below define the types of assets your club will typically have. Complete this simple asset recorder sheet as a record of your assets. Include everything that you own or are responsible for maintaining. Your assets should be recorded on your balance sheet asset register
What types of assets are there?
| Common Assets - those assets that are uniform across different sectors or don't require specialist inputs or function. | Examples: buildings, court lights, retaining walls, walkways, fences, car parks |
| Specialty Assets - those assets that are specific co a sector or require specialist inputs or function. | Examples: tennis courts, court grooming machines, access gates |
| Ancillary Assets - those assets that are important for your club, however, are not essential for playing the game of tennis. Ancillary assets will either be common or specialty assets. | Examples: change rooms, toilets, storage sheds |
|
Chattels - those assets that are generally considered plant, furniture and equipment and can be easily removed or serve a necessary function. Chattels will also either be common or specialty assets. |
Examples: carpets, curtains, nets, posts, swimming pool filtration, fridges |
This section of the toolkit will help to get you started with Asset Planning.
What is an asset plan?
Asset planning primarily focusses on the health and preservation of assets. Just like your car, your club assets need to perform day in, day out so it is imperative you renew, service and maintain them. Asset management can be defined in a variety of ways, such as Asset Management, Long Term Maintenance, Asset Renewals or Replacement and Infrastructure Management to name a few.
For consistency we will use the term Asset Plan.
For the benefit of this toolkit we have separated asset planning into two different formats; Renewals and Maintenance.
- Renewal programmes - the practice and detail of replacing, renewing, refurbishing or upgrading assets over time. This could be for end of life, warranty, efficiency, or useful life reasons e.g., Court resurfacing, LED light conversion, club house roof replacement
- Maintenance programmes - the practice and detail of preserving assets over time by maintaining or servicing g , court grooming, building washing.
Tips
Each year set aside some time to look at your key assets and prepare a priority list, see types of assets in step 1 (drop down menu above). Focus on your playing surfaces and high use areas, such as lounges, change rooms and toilets. An asset register is useful to understand and categorise your assets.
Then think about how much you can afford to set aside each year based on those priorities
An Asset Plan is essential as it will help you to focus on what, when and how much you should apply to your assets.
This section of the toolkit will help to get you started with Facilities Management.
What is facilities management?
Facilities management focusses on operational tasks, such as cleaning, lawn mowing or changing light bulbs, and is not generally considered in asset planning. There are, however, some more complex or specialist tasks, such as court grooming, court light lamp replacement or building washing that is more suited to asset maintenance as noted above. These tasks will generally require specialist providers to complete the works.
For the benefit of this toolkit, we have separated facilities management into the following key areas:
- Compliance programmes - the practice and detail of maintaining or servicing certifiable assets on a scheduled basis. These services are generally required for your Building Warrant of Fitness (BWoF) e.g , Service lift certification, fire and evacuation certification, defibrillator servicing.
- Service programmes - the practice and detail of preserving and presenting assets not required for compliance by checking, cleaning, maintaining or servicing e.g. light bulb replacing, club cleaning, low window cleaning, carpet cleaning, furniture and equipment repairs.
Tips
Each year organise a club working bee. This is a great opportunity to connect with members and to get some of your assets spruced up. Select tasks for members to tend to, such as, deck cleaning, low window washing, gardening, BBQ cleaning and asset checks. The best time to do this is the weekend before your Love Tennis Open Day. You will have the club looking fabulous for prospective new members!
Warning: make sure you have a well-planned list of tasks and a health and safety plan. Multiple chainsaws or hedge trimmers could go horribly wrong!
Tennis NZ would consider the most important asset that any tennis club will have is their tennis courts. Many Councils will categorise playing surfaces as 'core infrastructure' being vital to getting communities more active.
Key features of the most common types of court surface are shown below. For more on tennis court surfaces check out our section called Resurfacing your tennis courts.
 |
 |
 |
| Artificial Grass Courts | Acrylic Hard Courts | Acrylic Cushioned Courts |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now that you have an overview of asset planning, we can now look at some of the typical key assets found at clubs. The list below will also give you an idea of optimal renewals and maintenance required. Renewals of various items, such as LED lights, are based on expected life after fitting. Check out our section 4 above playing court surfaces for more details.
| Club Item | Club House (Exterior)
|
Club House (Interior)
|
Tennis Courts
|
| Maintain |
|
|
|
| Renew |
|
|
|
The information in this section of the toolkit will give you an overview of looking after your assets. The key is to plan for regular maintenance and renewals so that you can get the best value from your club assets. Don't let the planning of your assets overwhelm you.
It is important to note that even if you reside on leased land you may be responsible for the assets located there and will be defined in your lease agreement and area e.g., tennis courts, walkways, gardens, car parks and club houses
Our Recommendations
- Complete our simple 'asset recorder' sheet to get an overview of all of your assets
- Compliment this with our simple asset plan
- This should be linked to your funding plan (See Funding Toolkit here)
- There is an option to invest in an Asset Plan through Tennis NZ's preferred Community Asset Advisor. Accessing professional advice can further help you to maintain your precious assets should you wish to invest in this area.(Application for funds to support this may be available through certain sources)
- Contact us for further information and to get some technical support.
Our information aligns to the technical specifications of the International Tennis Federation (ITF). For more detailed information on facility specifications see here
Our Partners
