Legendary bowls club faces darkest hour

A Brisbane club which hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games lawn bowls events faces closure next year if it cannot raise more revenue soon.

Moorooka Bowls Club faces closure next year if it cannot find more revenue — and soon.

A Brisbane club which hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games lawn bowls events faces closure next year if it cannot raise more revenue soon.

Ironically, poker machine revenue, which has kept it and many other clubs viable for many years, is dropping so fast its future is under grave threat.

Moorooka Bowls Club, which opened in 1968, has been one of Queensland’s leading clubs over the years and at some point in the past 30-40 years most of the state’s top players have been members at some point.

Its heyday came in 1982 when Queen Elizabeth II paid a visit during the Commonwealth Games.

At the time, extra stands were built down one side and a new green was installed, but the extra playing surface has also ironically become another drain on its limited resources.

There were about 300 male and 200 female players as recently as the mid-1990s but now Moorooka was down to a total of about 50 players.

General manager, Gary Cosier, said club members would hold a meeting tomorrow (Saturday April 20) to discuss possible alternative revenue options.

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“We’re not closing. The club has a cash flow crisis and the next few weeks will be critical to resolving that,’’ Mr Cosier said.

“Unfortunately, Bowls Queensland and Brisbane City Council thought that they might have a joint venture partner, but that fell through about 10 days ago because of the lack of gaming revenue.

“They (the joint venture partner) had taken over some other clubs in Brisbane and improved facilities and the gaming part of their businesses, but one of their recent acquisitions did not work out as well as they had hoped so they have (reviewed their operations).’’

Mr Cosier said council earlier this year told them it would not be renewing their lease, due in March next year.

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However, council has now told the club it will consider renewing the lease if it can demonstrate sufficient cash reserves to cover any future losses for the next three to four years.

“That makes sense, we understand that,’’ Mr Cosier said.

Councillor Steve Griffiths (Moorooka) said he had been working closely with the club to try to help it find a way forward.

Mr Cosier said it would be unfortunate if they had to close considering other clubs had large debts and Moorooka had managed to trim costs so much it was now close to break-even.

“The club has been losing money for years but we have reduced the losses from about 240,000 three years ago to almost none,’’ he said.

“The kitchen never made money, so we closed it.

“We have food vans instead on popular days and only open the kitchen for special events.

“We have a consultant who advises on green maintenance and volunteers who help with the greens, which has saved us about $140,000.

“We’re lucky to have a Dad’s Army crew who work tirelessly and have done so for years.

“That means we don’t have to pay for outside tradesmen for the painting, electrical work and maintaining the gardens and so on.

“I do the greens myself, but we’re all getting older and while we used to have 20 of those guys we’re down to about a dozen and they don’t have the capacity to put in like they used to.’’

Mr Cosier said while he was a non-gambler and the club did not promote gambling, the reality was poker machine revenue had been its lifeline, providing 25-30 per cent of total revenue until recently.

But Moorooka, and other small clubs across the state, had had their gaming revenue hit by the rise in mobile phone and smart TV betting.

“We’ve had a 50 per cent drop in that revenue source. If poker machine revenue had stayed constant, or even dropped 10 per cent, we would not be having the problem we are having now,’’ he said.