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THE Dilmun Club is celebrating the completion of a BD140,000 investment programme which has seen the popular members club expand and improve its facilities.
Founded in 1974 and fondly known as 'The Dilly' the family, sporting and social facility currently boasts around 4,000 members from 60 countries.
Despite a series of challenges - the worldwide recession which has resulted in a severe turn-over of expatriates, the swine flu scare and the government-imposed smoking ban - the club's management committee decided it was the right time to invest.
"We're very confident about the future," said Andrew Storey, 'house member' responsible for the club's maintenance. "We're going from strength to strength and continuing to attract applications for membership despite everything."
The profile of the members has also started to adjust to the changing circumstances with more young families signing up replacing what was once an ageing demographic.
The global downturn may have actually provided a timely boost for members clubs on the island as families look for value-for-money and think twice about visiting five-star hotel facilities as regularly as they once did, believes Mr Storey, a father-of-five oil field consultant from Jasra.
The Dilly caters for all tastes and styles of food through its five different outlets and has heavily invested in its kitchen facilities in recent months to retain its long-established reputation for offering varied and reasonably-priced fare.
The flagship restaurant Candles provides regular events such as Sunday's 'dinner-for-two', Tuesday's 'four corners of the world' spread and Friday's ever popular 'brunch'.
The Amigos poolside restaurant caters for families and is also a popular venue for children's birthday parties and items can also be ordered off the full menu in the Bulls Head and Orbit outlets and the Bistro has been refurbished in Mediterranean-style.
"The kitchens have been totally refitted," said Mr Storey. "We have new fridges, food preparations areas and a whole range of equipment. It is considered a vital aspect of what we are as a club."
Although this may be regarded as a 'behind-the-scenes' investment the club's newly-constructed Orbit veranda has made a huge visual impact and become a hot topic of conversation.
Originally proposed to provide a simple comfortable outside seating area for smokers its creation has proved so popular the club committee has been urged to place big screen TVs close-by for the coming World Cup Finals and blinds to provide shading.
There has even been a bizarre request for 'outside air conditioning units' and a compromise suggestion to place cooling water vapour fans in the vicinity was quickly dismissed by smokers who feared their cigarettes might end up soggy.
You can't please all the people, all the time ... but the Dilly's eight-strong committee has won universal accolades for laying state-of-the-art artificial turf on the football pitch.
The squash courts have also been refurbished and there are further plans to invest in its adjoining riding stables with new stalls and half a dozen new horses and ponies.
That may have to wait a while as the kingdom gets to grips with solving the glanders disease outbreak which has rocked the equine community ... yet another unique challenge of 'island life'.
