April - Club Victoria Inc.

The year before us …
LEADERSHIP
A
ter of 2011 and
many issues that will
As a group we can work
together to face these trials but as individual clubs it seems a
lone
The thing that struck me during the carnage of nature over the last
few months in regional Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia
and even New Zealand and Japan was the sense of community
that cranked up almost immediately to help each other. When a
neighbour is in trouble the Australian culture responds to help
out by working together to overcome the problem being faced.
This is not just an Australian way of responding but it seems when
faced with a challenge the once apathetic Aussie nature of “she’ll be
right” is overturned and action replaces our laconic nature.
When I view the club sector I identify a number of challenges that
we all have which can be faced either by ourselves or together. Of
course we have our own club interests and we are mindful of our
members and providing maximum service and financial return
for them. But as the club community is at threat through changes
to legislation, increased regulation, dwindling members, reduced
revenue, shortage of staff, operational capability being challenged I
wonder whether we as a group should be increasing our activity to
support each other.
Last year a significant Victorian club was embarrassed by a
licensing decision and now requires its Board to be trained in
liquor licensing every year whilst paying a significant amount to an
education fund. This case is a salutary lesson of the responsibility
for elected club officials to be aware of the laws that affect a club.
These laws are not just restricted to liquor but also extend to
OH&S, Industrial Relations, Corporate Governance, Tax and
Audit, indeed all laws that affect any organisation. The point
though is this … elected officials are responsible and therefore
are exposed to action should the club not meet its obligations. Yet
it seems, as in the case of the club above, so many Boards do not
truly understand their responsibilities.
I therefore believe it is incumbent of Clubs Victoria to increase its
education offerings to ensure capability is available for its entire
membership. We recognise there is much to do within clubs and
we want to work as a collective to ensure training and education
is available. We therefore will launch our ClubsCollege shortly to
allow clubs to increase their learning opportunities at a service level
difficult to obtain as an individual. We will begin audits of clubs
very shortly to determine need and custom potentially government
funded training to suit each member. The point to this is that by
working together we can access greater opportunity and funding.
Clubs Vicoria President Peter Craig
So to the challenges faced by those clubs with gaming operations.
Already under a significant compliance regime the sector is under
attack by a member of Parliament holding the federal government
to ransom. How one person who came third in the primary vote
with 20% but then win on preferences can reshape an entire
national industry is beyond political comprehension but this is
the case under the current minority federal government. Clubs
Victoria is working hard to ensure local members of parliament
know they will have repercussions if decisions go against the
current compliance regime in Victoria. We are also working with
the national club community through Clubs Australia to ensure
our voice is heard in Canberra. This is another example of how
working together can muster a stronger voice.
This working together notion is the reason my club Amstel is
a member of Clubs Victoria. We could do it alone but we also
believe we have a duty to the sector to work together for the
greater benefit. Clubs Victoria has been in operation for over 94
years and has faced many challenges in particular recently through
the restructure of gaming. We have fought and won and also lost
battles on behalf of our members and we will continue to do so.
Your current Council is focused on five major pillars for members:
1. Advocacy – providing a strong and loud voice for
members
2. Education – providing learning outcomes that help clubs
develop and flourish
3. Industrial relations – providing advice and counselling
that is the benchmarked leader
4. Member Services – providing a buyer advantage that
otherwise would not be available
5. Community – providing networking opportunities for all
clubs to grow and prosper
To achieve these pillars we need a Council focused on strategy,
governance and structure that will maximise a return on
investment for our members and our supplier partners. After a two
and half year period of hiatus we are now budgeting to allow our
members to retain the collective strength of the club community.
We have committed not to increase subscriptions this year and
at the same time we will increase all aspects of our operation to
increase our service to our members.
This is the challenge for Clubs Victoria in the future … to provide
a thought leader advocacy body that provides not only leadership
on issues that are important to clubs but also services that are
meaningful and cost effective. This is the Council’s goal and we
hope you provide the feedback to direct us on this journey.
6 CLUBConnect April 2011