Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 19 August 1922
Miners Welfare Fund
Denaby’s Scheme Approved by Central Committee
Grant of £10,000 authorised
Mr Arthur Roberts, the secretary of the Denaby and Cadeby Miners Welfare Committee has received the approval of the District Committee to the Denaby scheme, with the sanction of a total grant of £10,000. Application has therefore been made for the first instalment, £2,500, and it is anticipated that the amount will be forthcoming shortly. When that sum is received work will be commenced.
It is intended to erect a large and well-appointed Institute between the cricket and football grounds. The scheme provides for a reading room, lecture room, concert room, a room for public meetings, swimming baths, slipper baths and gymnasium, and, when complete will be one of the most complete and well-appointed institutes in the country.
The Institute will be managed in conjunction with the football and cricket clubs, and it is probable that a new organisation will come into being under the title of the Denaby and Cadeby Athletic Club.
The first estimate of the cost of the scheme was £20,000, but this figure has been modified to £15,000. The committee place the sum required to carry out the scheme at £10,000, the difference of £5,000 been represented by the value of existing grounds and premises.
It is intended to extend the advantages of the Institute to all the residents of Conisborough and Denaby, and membership will not be restricted to men working at the two pits, though outside the colliery workers, a slightly higher membership fee will probably be charged.
The total number of workmen living in Denaby and Conisborough will benefit by the scheme is 3,333, whilst in addition, there are 875 men who work at the Denaby and Cadeby pits, who live in Mexborough, and 29 whose homes are in Doncaster.
The figure of £10,000, the amount of the grant which has been sanctioned by the district Committee is arrived at by a flat rate for South Yorkshire collieries of 70/– per employee spreading over a period of five years. The balance of 20% of the total proceeds of the system will, we understand, be applied at the expiration of five years to assist those districts whose schemes have not, during that time, materialised. To provide for the maintenance of the new Institute on sound financial lines a levy of 1d per week per member is suggested.
Previous to granting sanction for the scheme, the District Committee requested the local committee to forward a resolution passed by the men in favour of the adoption of the project, and, at a meeting held in the Denaby Picture Hall recently, the men unanimously decided in its favour.