Debt Demolition

Over many years, successive boards have endeavoured to improve the financial standing of the Springwood Bowls Club and have made huge personal sacrifices of both time and money in pursuit of that goal. Sadly, the Club industry is hopelessly wed to the fortunes of gaming activities and competition in our area is extremely strong.

The decision to re-develop our greens in 2008 was the correct one, but through no fault of our own the result is now history. The funding required to re-develop our greens has been significant and those commitments were largely made before the tenure of the current board.

At the time, after significant due diligence, it was unanimously agreed that this was the correct strategy, albeit with its inherent risks, but the debt taken on to invest at this level and in the absence of the win-fall returns enjoyed by some other clubs, has seen Springwood left vulnerable in the tough economic climate that now exists.

It requires significant dollars to run a club. At all levels, lawn bowls is coming under increasing pressure and clubs, in the absence of significant returns from gaming fall behind those with significant pokie & other turnover.

The current board can no longer accept sailing so “close to the wind’ financially and have had to act to forge a sustainable future, instead of just hoping that the club would survive on the vagaries of gaming returns, bar sales, etc. The board has decided to try and move the club to a more manageable level of debt based on conservative, but realistic cash-flow forecasts and mindful of the current economic outlook. The levels of debt and the consequent principal repayments to service borrowings were and still are a burden that the club simply cannot sustain in the current trading environment.

The Club has launched a Debt Demolition Campaign with an ultimate goal of raising more than a $50,000 to reduce the clubs debt and hopefully a core group of passionate and generous people will put their money where their mouth is and donate to the debt demolition campaign.

Please spare a few dollars for this cause ....
The Club has been part of the community for 40 years and if clubs like this die, then so to does part of the community !