Crisis meeting for Pines Golf Club

A CRISIS meeting held at the Gympie Pines Golf Club on Sunday has set in place a plan to save the the club from possible receivership.

Gympie Pines Golf Club committee member Eric King is hoping members will help secure the club’s future.

A CRISIS meeting held at the Gympie Pines Golf Club on Sunday has set in place a plan to save the the club from possible receivership.

About 150 of the club’s 360 members arrived at the clubhouse to hear the committee’s plan to free the club of debt and return it to financial stability.

Club spokesperson and committee member Eric King wouldn’t comment on the amount of money owed by the golf club, except to say that it was “fairly substantial”.

He said Gympie Pines, like a lot of other golf clubs, had been struggling during the tough economic times.

He said debts currently owed by the club had been building up over the past four years, but he was quick to point out it was not because of mismanagement by the golf club’s committee.

“Since the members took over the management and the running of the club in June last year, there has been a substantial improvement in the club’s financial position,” Mr King said.

“We have been in a bad situation for the past three to four years.’

The present committee thought the club needed to take action to pay creditors or go into liquidation.

The committee had considered introducing a levy for players but thought the extra cost would force more players out of the game.

THEY are now hoping for 40 current members to pay five years’ fees (at a discounted rate of about $500 a year) in advance to enable the club to pay out debts and focus on the future.

Mr King said the committee wanted to limit the offer to 40 players to make sure the club still had membership cash flow in the following years. “We have an accountant as our treasurer now and his projections show the club as being viable,” Mr King said.

“The figures are good and continuing to improve – we have been trading well.

“We didn’t want to trade with more debts than assets ... our main focus is to get the club financially viable.

“We have one of the best golf courses in country Queensland and we need to get rid of the debt.”

The committee member said he didn’t want to leave the club open to action by someone who was owed money.

The Gympie Pines Golf Course is currently owned by a syndicate of investors who have redeveloped some of the golf course, building townhouses for resort style living.

The club leases the course off the syndicate.

Mr King said Sunday’s meeting was no “magic panacea”.

“We still need to work to build the club and get the community involved,” he said.

Originally published as Crisis meeting for Pines Golf Club