From the Committee
The club runs on the contributions of a large number of members. As we have been reviewing our expenses and the way we manage our activities, I am impressed at how much different people do to help our club be as good as it is. We don't yet have a full list of the different contributors and their contributions, but I am convinced that the size of some of these contributions are largely unknown to our overall membership. For some of the roles, possibly only the persons who have held the role previously can comprehend the amount of time, effort and responsibility involved.
Take for example the House Manager role, currently filled by Bill Fitzsimons. In recent months a sample of things I am aware that Bill has been involved in, completely on a voluntary basis, include:
We have received 203 responses to our member survey at the time of writing this article, an impressive 33% response rate from our 608 members. It is not too late. If you have not completed the survey or wish to update your response click on http://bit.ly/PBCSurvey2018. We want to gather as many of our members' views as possible to give us a good foundation for making decisions on your behalf.
A few of our members did not want to include their year of birth and remarkably were born in 2018. That is of course their choice but for some purposes these responses will need to be excluded. For instance it may not be possible to use their survey responses as demographic evidence to demonstrate to Council and other similar bodies our provision of strong community value to senior citizens, and could diminish our claim to stronger community support.
The survey will close at noon on Saturday 30 June. Printed responses will be entered online. The responses will then be augmented by postcode and other relevant membership data held and the results summarized and anonymized in a form useful to the committee and for inclusion into a club demographic and transport needs profile - and interesting summary results published on the website.
The club continues to support visitors and other players who find themselves unexpectedly without a partner at a number of its sessions: Monday afternoons (Green section only), Wednesday afternoons, Wednesday evenings, Friday afternoons and Friday evenings. We also welcome unpartnered players at all of our supervised sessions.
We have started keeping records of the unpartnered players at these sessions and there are many. While we encourage these players to proactively arrange for their own partners, we are glad when we can help those who unexpectedly find themselves partnerless.
Club members will have heard of the grant money we received as part of the federal Stronger Communities Program. We received $7,500 plus GST to be used to fund 50% of $15,000 in eligible spending on bridge equipment to improve the club. We are pleased to note (as we are required to do) that “This project received grant funding from the Australian Government.”
We would also like to note the huge voluntary time commitments that planning and implementing these purchases involved from the Committee and others, and particularly from Bill Fitzsimons, Ken Watson and David Farmer.
We have used this grant money as follows:
This month, the Committee has been explaining to members - through talks at the club and information on the website - the key challenge facing our club, namely our future Clubhouse.
The Committee’s decision to prioritise adding additional money to our annual surplus, for the purpose of being well prepared for the future, has received broad support.
The Committee is reviewing the Club’s finances to identify ways to raise money or save money, without taking away from the enjoyment of the game or the friendly experience of playing bridge at our Club. The initial measure of withdrawing winner’s tickets was supported by the majority as an effective first step to adding to our reserves - saving $24,000 a year.
A number of members have raised the ongoing car parking issues at the club, particularly for those who are mobility challenged. While there is no simple solution the committee has:
- Asked council to provide more mobility access parking spaces in the Nelson Heather Centre carpark and to restrict more of Boondah Rd parking to five hours (rather than all-day that suits B-Line commuters)
- Publicized the KEO-RIDE option for those living north of Narrabeen bridge that can help reduce the number of cars coming to the Club
- Progressed plans to spread our heaviest player (and thus parking) loads by adding additional rookie sections to other afternoon sessions and by trialing a morning session
- Created a Parking Working Group (led by committee member Greg Hay) to work on a wide range of measures to improve our parking experience
If you are interested in being involved in the Working Group please contact Greg on 0421 659 761 or
Of course any shared transport to the club such as car-pooling, or sharing a taxi or Uber, would also help the situation.
It currently seems likely we will reach a significant annual revenue milestone at the very beginning of next financial year, if not at the end of our current financial year. When "total revenue as recorded in the income and expenditure statement (i.e. gross receipts) for a financial year is more than $250,000 (excluding GST) or current assets are more than $500,000" we become a Tier 1 incorporated association - and this has some significant impacts on our financial and regulatory reporting requirements.
In brief we will need:
- To demonstrate our accounting practices align with relevant Australian Accounting Standards
- To have our financial statements and supporting records independently audited.
You can read about the Tier 1 status and accompanying requirements on the NSW Department of Fair Trading website.
To ensure we are prepared for this transition the Committee is moving to obtain an independent review of our accounting practices and related advice from an appropriate accounting and auditing firm in time to put any changes in place before the next financial year.
In the third week of May the President spoke to members about where we were in our research into suitable premises options for when our current lease expires in April 2021, and about priorities the Committee had unanimously determined to ensure the club was in a financially better shape in order to increase confidence of achieving a good premises outcome.
The Committee has set a goal of extending our current reserves of about $350,000 to more than $500,000 when our lease expires in under three years, without compromising the quality of bridge that we enjoy. To achieve this our intent is to increase our normal annual increase in our reserves from its recent levels of around $10,000 to more like $40-50,000 each year by reviewing our costs and, if possible, identifying new income sources such as fundraising and sponsorship of events or other costs.
