We’re Ivan and Sandra Rickell, the husband and wife team behind Singled Out 30+ Singles Club which has been running singles nights in the East Midlands for nearly 10
years and hosts weekly Friday night discos at two fantastic Worksop venues, Clumber Park Hotel and Bondhay Golf Club and one Nottingham venue- Notts County FC’s superb Meadow Lane Sports Bar!
We opened our first club at the Willoughby Lodge Hotel, Upper Broughton, Leics back in November 2001 and never imagined that ‘for one’ we’d still be going strong 10 years later and ‘for two’ that we’d be boasting 30,000 club members AND almost 420,000 on-line ones!
Ivan and I met at a singles club ourselves, which is why we do this- so a warning to everyone out there, it can happen to you… singles clubs really work! (*Titter!)
We set our own club up as there was nowhere near us offering a good night out for singles in our age bracket. We found the perfect venue, already knew the perfect DJ, we just had to re-mortgage our house to pay for all the advertising to get us off to a good start!
Four weeks later and £1000 poorer, the opening night was upon us. Unfortunately, the hotel manager had double booked which meant we started off in their cavernous 300 capacity function room, rather than the more modest and realistic 100 capacity one we’d asked for. You can imagine our embarrassment as 23 cautious 30+ singles found their way into our fantastic new night, with conversations echoing around the near empty room! “Hellooo, hellooo, hellooo, hellooo.”
“Do you come here often, often, often, often?”
Despite the disappointing start, we were so convinced we’d got everything right and the club would take off, that we stuck with it, kept advertising and putting the word round and the next week, we doubled our numbers. Feedback was good about the venue and music and though it’s hard to believe, we’d had our first success on the romantic front… I kid you not! One of the members that almost hadn’t made it through the door the first night, met the woman of his dreams and was convinced he was going to marry her. By the third week, he’d popped the question, she’d said yes and we’d been invited to our first wedding reception! (I know, I know… perhaps a bit quick, but as far as we know, they’re happily married to this day and were one of those blessed couples who ‘just knew’??!!)
By the 4th week attendance had increased to around 70 people and then 80 new members appeared from nowhere, making the night a roaring success and we were off and
never looked back. It soon became the norm that if you didn’t get there by 9.15pm, you couldn’t get in… and yes I do mean in the 300 capacity room! In August 2003 things were going so well for us that we opened our second club at the lovely Clumber Park Hotel, Worksop, and this Friday, August 5th, we celebrate our 8th anniversary there! We started there having attracted 4,941 members in roughly 18 months… eight years on and we’re just 30 short of the 30,000 milestone! Not bad for a husband and wife team who met at a singles club themselves and just wanted to start a nice, friendly club which could possibly attract 1000 members!
In July this year we moved to our newest venue, the amazing Meadow Lane Sports Bar at Notts County FC’s ground in Nottingham. The new members (and old!) just keep coming so we expect to go well past the 30,000 member mark this week. To mark this milestone and our 8 years at Clumber Park, we’re offering FREE membership to all who join this Friday, and on November 11th, to celebrate our 10th anniversary, it will be FREE entry at both clubs, the least we can do to thank our members, new and old, for supporting a venture which began as a little sideline, but has become a career.
Want to know more about us? Check us out on our website and feel free to drop us a line/get in touch.. we’d love to hear from you.
Very best wishes,
Sandra & Ivan.
www.singledout.co.uk
