Maryborough pushes on
Despite Australian normality being put on a brief hiatus, the bowlers at Maryborough bowls club have endeavoured to keep pushing their club forwards and have used the downtime to continue to improve their club.
The club has undergone a lot of work over the past few weeks with changes made both in and outside the clubhouse.
“We didn’t want to just sit on our hands during this time and we wanted to make the most of the time we have,” Maryborough’s Chairman Laurie Genrich said.
“There’s been a bit happening, we’ve replaced the carpeted walkway by sanding it all back down and painting it with
a non-slip epoxy paint, we’ve also repainted the seats and extended the roof and painted it to give our members extra sun protection.
“It doesn’t sound like it but it’s been a big job, we’ve also cleaned our carpeted playing surface as well as the general carpet in the club and we will be replacing our grass green to give us two outdoor synthetic surfaces.”
The flurry of work has helped the 120-year-old club push towards its objectives, which it has set out in its five-year strategic plan, however, Genrich says the club is not just looking at the next five years as it is strategically setting itself up to still be going strong in another 30 years time.
The club is quickly becoming one of the role models for other clubs in the state to learn from.
“We’ve got a real good committee and volunteers who are all hard workers as well,” Genrich said.
“As long as you’ve got that positivity in the club, then your club is going to move in the right direction regardless.”
It’s not just hard workers that the club has as the ace up
its sleeve, the club is also incredibly resourceful and they currently have an arrangement with the Queensland Corrective Services who provide workers for up to 30 hours a month.
The club has been using them to help with painting and gardening along with other jobs around the club.
So far the scheme has worked out well with one of the placements proving to be a real asset for the club, they are now considering training her up on the bar, which will not only help the club but will assist her with gaining employment in the future.
The scheme has had a double benefit for the club, as it has scored them extra brownie points with the council.
The club has been proactive in managing their relationship with the council, who already look favourably on the club as it is now the home to a variety of other community clubs and not just the bowling contingent.
Genrich and the team at Maryborough understand the importance of ensuring the club is diversified financially and does not solely rely on the bowls portion of the business, which for nearly all clubs costs them more capital than it brings in.
The push to make their club an inviting community club with a profitable bar and restaurant will help them to continue to grow, Genrich hopes that as the patronage increases so will the potential new bowling members.
Maryborough looks set to be a club on the rise in 2021.
