Dutch Real Tennis Association
After a long silence from "the low countries" some very good news.
Just before 2011 ended we have signed the agreement giving us the right to acquire the ownership of the huis ter kleef kaatsbaan - we now have 14 months (until march 2013) to organize the financing - if we fail by said date the agreement expires.
In December 2005, the city of Haarlem agreed with our proposal to restore the Real Tennis court at huis ter kleef. Some five years later (December 2010) negotiations finally started to set the price - for a long time we hoped to pay just one euro for the monument, but all the delays have had another detrimental effect, the city now needs money so in the end we had to agree to a price of approx. 250,000 Euro.
Our challenge now is to raise approx. 1,450,000 Euro for acquiring ownership of the monument and restoration of the kaatsbaan - the money to acquire ownership is already guaranteed, which leaves us with the task of raising just a mere 1.2 million Euros. We plan to submit financing requests to a private institutional fund focused on restoring historic buildings - later on we will also set up a private membership and fundraising efforts across the Tennis world - the rtc huis ter kleef has already established a tax-exempt charitable foundation (stichting huis ter kleef) - the stichting has signed the agreement and will acquire ownership of the kaatsbaan.
If you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to contact us (either Niek van Wijk, secretary st. huis ter kleef npcvanwijk@gmail.com, or Steven Chapman schapman@psi.org, or myself reuser@euronet.nl).