Clunes Football Netball Club on track to find a new venue

A flood-hit Central Highlands Football League pass first important milestone in search of a brighter future.

Clunes Football Netball Club is on the move but a decision has yet to be made on where to go.

The club held a historic meeting on Sunday to talk about a move away from Bull Millgate Oval after the oval was flooded recently for the third time in 11 years.

This, combined with the complex being out of date, forced the Clunes committee to make the tough decision to move.

It now has the approval from the rest of the club after their AGM.

“It was all very productive, very good,” Former Clunes president and committee member Brendan Sheehan said.

“We had a good number of people turn up.

“It was all very positive and no real objections to examining the possibilities.”

Sheehan, who stepped down as president with Andrew Stinchcombe taking over, is now part of a sub committee at the club looking into where Clunes will go.

The focus now is to get the council, Hepburn Shire, on board and funding from the state and federal governments to get the project completed.

“We’re still in talks with the Hepburn Shire, talks have been positive,” Sheehan said.

“The focus will be looking for a suitable location in Clunes.

“We’ve set up a bit of a sub committee to handle the examination process.

“They’ll be reporting directly back to the committee.

“We’ve got several members there who have put their hand up.”

A new facility is not expected to be completed for a couple of years with the club set to stay at Bull Millgate Oval in the short term.

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Earlier, the future of the Clunes Football Netball Club will be in jeopardy if the club doesn’t make a move away from its current home ground.

This is the grim reality outlined by Clunes president Brendan Sheehan as the club prepares for a historic annual general meeting this Sunday, November 28.

Recently, the club’s home ground, Bull Millgate Oval, was flooded for the third time in 11 years.

The flooding, combined with the clubrooms being more than 40 years old and unable to be renovated due to building codes, forced the club to make a decision.

It needs to move.

The club will discuss a possible move at its upcoming AGM.

“The ground itself is a lovely ground visually, but very small, and our complex is out of date,” Sheehan revealed.

“It also requires a lot of work, to clean up and pack up for game days.

“The stuff we have to do to have a home game is too hard for volunteers.

“We realise to progress forward into the future, it is something we have to do.”

The club already has ideas of where it wants to go.

“We’ve identified several spots around town,” he said.

“It will depend a lot on the Shire (Hepburn) and the DELP (Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning).

“We’re in consultation with the shire and are trying to set up a few meetings to get them on board.”

The potential sites the club has looked into include the Showgrounds, Victoria Street park and the old Clunes Dog Park near the current football ground.

One thing is guaranteed, the club will not move out of town.

The club is also consulting with other sporting clubs in the region to find something which could suit them all.

Sheehan is hoping Clunes may be able to mimic the set-up at nearby Creswick, which has a complex for multiple sports.

“We’ve spoken, not formally, to the president of the bowls club and the cricket club to tell them what we are thinking,” he said.

“We will be talking to both of them and several others around town to keep them in the loop, to potentially jump on board and have a sporting complex in one area.

“We want this facility to help the football netball club, but we also want a proper facility the community can use.

“There’s no area that can have a function of more than 100 people.

“We identified that, yes, we want to relocate, but we can find something that can be an asset to everyone.”

Sheehan said ideally the new area would be ready in the next three to four years.

The club is inviting anyone associated to Clunes to head to the AGM to discuss and vote on the outcome.

The AGM will be held on Sunday at 11am at the Clunes Football Netball Club on Angus Road in Clunes.