Clubbable

The BBC Club is in its 90th year. Will it make 91 ?

It was formed as a private members club in 1924 - the BBC was then itself a private company, set up in 1922. The first recorded minutes of the Club that have been found come in 1925.

‘Bom [Bombardier] Carter went to Mr Reith [DG of BBC] to ask for some money. Mr Reith suggested that £110 would probably be the amount required but Bom Carter suggested £400. Mr Reith agreed to ask the Directors to guarantee the latter amount. Bom Carter also reported that one of the Directors who attended the Rugger match last Saturday promised that he could be counted on for a subscription.’

At the beginning, the Club supported a number of activities including ‘rugger, cricket, swimming, dancing, whist drives, badminton and soccer’ and was looking for lawn tennis courts and talking about setting up an amateur dramatic society. The BBC was principally an engineering organisation, rapidly building networks of transmitters across the country so that manufacturers could sell more radio sets. Transmitter sites also spawned mini-BBC Clubs; there, working life was akin to that of fire stations on military bases - a lot of sitting round on shifts, waiting for things to go wrong. So clubs were often sheds or commandeered rooms, with snooker, table tennis and dart boards.

One of the biggest was at Droitwich, which, over the years developed a remarkable programme of events, from flower shows to sprauncy dinner dances.

In parts of the country, this bucolic existence, though diminished in scale, continued until the 1990s. Then came an exercise within the Engineering Directorate called "Priorities for the Future", more accurately re-named "Black Spot" by engineering staff. In 1992, the Engineering Directorate was subsumed into a wider Resources division by DG John Birt.

Birt wanted to close the BBC Club - at least in Television Centre; he could see no reason for this huge suite of subsidised lunchtime drinking at the heart of his yogurt-at-your-desk production centre. To get traction, BBC staff were polled on whether or not they'd prefer a gym or a bar. It is alleged the sample was taken from regional staff who had neither at the time, so it came out 50-50. Birt declared he had a mandate to close, at the very least, one bar (used mainly by staff from News and Light Entertainment) and replace it with serried ranks of running machines.

John Birt sold off most of the BBC's transmitter operations in 1997 for £244m, allegedly at the instigation of the Tories, but perhaps also to reduce further the number of pesky beer-drinking metal-bashing engineers and pay for some digital investment.

Around the country, beer income for the club diminished, and subscriptions seemed less worthwhile, as prices rose. Drinkers at the BBC used primitive spreadsheets to work out how many pints a month would "get value" from a sub of around £7 a month - yogurt at the desk also seemed a better career move for many younger employees.

In 2004, the BBC closed the BBC Club facilities at Motspur Park - the private company operating the site on behalf of the Club went into liquidation, and the BBC decided to sell the freehold, raising around £3m. In 2006, the Club had to sell its box at the Royal Albert Hall, raising £500,000, and a holiday flat in Brighton, for an unnamed price.

Today the recreational activities are more about discounts, as in most private companies. Today, the BBC Flying Club no longer owns planes, but you can still get flying lessons at around £60 an hour discount to market rates. The BBC Yacht Club is down to two yachts. The Canal Cruising Section has the 60ft "Savoy Hill". Golf (in Isleworth and Leatherhead) is at a discount, as is riding (in Trent Park).

The new anxiety is that the BBC Club, which is now a private limited company, branched out into a big catering contract in March last year (spookily concurrent with the closure of the remaining bar and catering area at Television Centre). It was awarded responsibility for serving 3,000 staff based at White City, in the Broadcast Centre and the Media Centre. That deal comes to an end next month, with the BBC's decision to award a nationwide deal to Servest. So another major income stream disappears.

The current London subscription deal is complex; you pay 0.03% of salary plus 42p admin per month, or £10, whichever is higher. In W1, home to 6,000 staff, it buys you access to one "cafe-bar"; membership of the tiny gym is an extra £18.50 a month. Every tenth coffee to members is free, but the food service on busy lunchtimes is said to be problematic. The drinkers' calculation of how many pints gets value is immensely more complex, and many prefer to take their refreshment off-base.