Drayton Bowls Club partners with Toowoomba City Golf Club to create centre of excellence, new restaurant and entertainment

One of Toowoomba’s biggest and most profitable sporting clubs has revealed a new partnership with one of the city’s battlers, promising to create a dining and entertainment bonzana.

Excited by the new partnership with the Drayton Bowls Club are City Golf Club president Ed Britnell (left) and general manager Peter Constance.

With her club’s membership numbers falling to just a few dozen, volunteers getting older and its future viability in question, Vicki Foster and her colleagues at the Drayton Bowls Club made a brave call that has saved it from oblivion.

“The older members knew they wanted this club to survive, and we wanted to be respectful to them,” the club secretary said.

The 76-year-old club’s future is now not only secure but prosperous, after members voted to partner with the massively popular City Golf Club on a decade-long deal.

The Drayton Bowls Club executive look forward to new management by the City Golf Club. (from left) Vicki Foster - Secretary, Kay Jenkins - Treasurer and Ray Krause - Chair. Thursday, July 21, 2022. Picture: Nev Madsen.

Under the arrangement, the golf club acquired the land and took over running of the bowls club’s headquarters on Gipps Street, with the aim of investing more than $2m into it over several years.

“(Members) didn’t want to sell, so we looked at coming up with an affiliation with a more successful club, and the City Golf Club is who we started talking to,” Ms Foster said.

Drayton’s board now only needs to focus on running bowls operations, while its members will get access to the same benefits as City Golf Club members.

CGC general manager Peter Constance said work would start soon on upgrading the clubhouse, creating a restaurant, expanding gaming options and introducing other entertainment offerings.

He said they would hope to take advantage of not only the growing southwest corridor but also nearby University of Southern Queensland.

“We’ll make it a real social hub out there and appeal to young people and families,” he said.

“Dining is part of the plan, because there’s nothing there – they currently just open up to play bowls.”

Mr Constance said the CGC would also invest into the bowling greens and facilities, with the aim of making Drayton the sport’s “centre of excellence” in Toowoomba.

Ms Foster said the deal had already been positive for members, while more were coming on board from other clubs.

“At the start of this we had 55-60 members, since we started this we’ve had double the number of members involved,” she said.

“Members are really excited by what’s happening — next week it will be a fait accompli, and we’ll be able to go along and play bowls.

“They just wanted to see the club survive.”