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Tin Can Bay Country Club Inc.
Presidents Annual Report 2010/2011

Trading and Profit. The club had its first trading loss last year for a number of years. We have had another loss this year with the depreciation (over $226,000) of those assets we purchased in previous years causing much of this loss. The Board has put into place a number of cost cutting measures, some of which are mentioned below, and this has seen a reduction of our net loss by over $50,000. The Board will continue to implement further cost cutting measures, if necessary, to make sure the club is a viable business. The large depreciation amount we have in future years will make it difficult to show a profit for some time.
The continuing global financial turndown affected the club’s trading like many other businesses. Along with the inclement weather it caused a drop in trading against last years figures.
Bar trading was down by almost 20% on last years figures, even with increases in drink prices. Getting patronage at our club was a hard task as patrons started consuming their beverages at home. Although the bar expenses were reduced, by reducing the hours worked by staff, etc, the overall bar trading profit was down by 17%. The Board would hope that decisions made in reducing some of the overheads in the bar area will increase its profit.
Our income from the gaming area reduced slightly (4%) resulting in a reduction of our expenses in this area (government tax). The player loyalty program was removed to save on expenses. The profit for the year in this area reduced by approximately 3%.
The members and visitors use of our Keno facilities increased income by 11%, with a very slight increase in expenses, resulting in a 26% increase in profit for this area. Unfortunately this area does not contribute enough of the total profit to make too much difference.
Changes implemented in the sports trading area (green fees for visitors, reciprocal club members and non bulk green fee paying members) caused a 7% increase in income whilst reductions in expenses (number of greens staff, rangers commissions, etc) resulted in a 25% decrease. These changes created an almost 70% drop in the loss the club incurs maintaining our sporting fields. This means the club is subsidising sporting members approximately $110 each, down from approximately $300 per player last year.
The Board decided that all member fees would stay at the same level for this current year.
The club has now controlled the kitchen for over a year. This kitchen generated a loss of over $135,000 although steps were taken during the year to increase prices and reduce the loss. The kitchen is used as a drawcard to entice members and visitors to our club. Without it our patronage would be much lower and would reduce our profits in other areas. The second round of price increases in the restaurant have taken place and although patronage dropped slightly (the time of the year must also be taken into account for the patronage loss) the kitchen appears to be trading closer to a break even point. I feel that this area will always run at a slight loss similar to the sports area.
Income from other areas increased by almost 12% whilst our total other expenses reduced by 7%.

Committee. This year’s committee varied during the year. The election of officers saw three new members (Bob Gray, Lyn Glenholmes and Barbara Thorburn) added to the Board but the resignations, during the year, of Barbara Thorburn, Bob Gray and Laurie Raeburn required the appointment of Bob Callier back onto the Board. I would like to thank all Board members for their effort and contributions during the year.
The three sporting clubs (golf, men’s bowls and ladies bowls) saw the election of new presidents at their respective annual general meetings with Laurie Raeburn, Steve Garbutt and Denise Dare taking over the reins. The Board and management of the club would like to thank them for their efforts during the year. I would particularly like to thank the golf club for its financial and personnel contributions towards the maintenance of our prestigious golf course.

Staff. We have again had changes to our staff during the year but this has been kept to a minimum. Bar supervisor Rod Pilkington has settled in and is running a fairly tight bar. Matt and Tracey have joined during the year.
Our finance officer Leisa Charlton has also settled into her new role and is working magic with the accounts and reception area with Leisa Eichmann and Sherrill as her able assistants.
Secretary Manager Mark Whiting has now been with the club for almost six years and has kept the club on a steady course. His contribution to the efficiency and effectiveness of the club is not always noticed and an amount of unfounded criticism seems to be aimed at him.
The head greenkeeper Mick Hall has two new assistants keeping our sporting areas in top shape. John Dyer and Bill McKechnie are satisfying members with their work ethics on the greens. Our sporting fields are the envy of others.
The staff in the starter’s box make the operation of our golf course efficient. Without them we would either have costly staff or chaos in the bar area trying to satisfy our clientele. During the year it was necessary to reduce the amount of compensation we paid them and it is a priority to try and restore the previous amount when trading improves.

Social Responsibility. The club fulfils its role of social responsibility by providing charity days for a number of organisations throughout the year and making available its facilities for local organisations. The amounts raised were affected by slower trading and were slightly less than previous years.
During the year charity golf and bowls days, in conjunction with raffles, were held for:-
The “Angel Flight” charity organisation, in conjunction with “The Lost Arts” day run by Darryl Lee (over $2,000),
Tin Can Bay P-10 State School P & C (over $1300),
Tin Can Bay Ambulance committee and Rainbow Beach Surf Club,
Cooloola Coast Medical Transport group ($1000 from the raffle with wet weather cancelling the golf competition),
Legacy (over $1,000),
Tin Can Bay Lions Club (over $1,500),
The Clubs Queensland “Smile for a Child” charity drive (over $2,300) with more than $1,000 being raised by club member Russel Fraser having his fair locks dyed red.
Direct cash donations were given to the following local junior sporting and charitable groups
Tin Can Bay Cricket Club and
Cooloola Crocs Swimming Club.
A monthly donation to the Tin Can Bay P-10 State School “Good Start” Breakfast program was continued.
A donation was made into the running of the Christmas Carols by the local churches.
The club purchased twenty Lions Club Christmas cakes and distributed them through the Thursday and Sunday raffles.
An independent group utilised the clubs facilities to run a fundraising event for the flood victims of the Lockyer Valley, raising over $2,000.
The local Coast Guard continue to have their successful raffles on Friday nights and earn good revenue whilst “Ambulance” bingo continues to fill the Thursday morning slot.
Our clubhouse is always made available to local groups to hold meetings or functions at minimal or no cost.

Sport. The club has competitive golfers and bowlers, many of them competing in pennants to represent our club. Unfortunately this last year none of our pennant teams, men’s or ladies, managed to bring home the silverware. The club is always hopeful that this will change in the forthcoming year.
District and zone events for both bowls and golf were played on our facilities during the year. Most competitors have only praise for the facilities we provide.
The golf club provided the backdrop for the rugby league “State of Origin” series by conducting its own “State of Origin” golf competition. Again this inaugural competition was won by the banana benders and looks like becoming a permanent fixture on their calendar.
The local swimming club “Cooloola Crocs”, which has received sponsorship since its inception, held its first interclub carnival at the Tin Can Bay Pool with great success and our clubs name in prominent view.

Developments. Problems with the on-line computerised golf booking system seem to have disappeared with completion of changes to the broadband supplier’s network finished.
The golf course was saturated during the heavy rains in the early part of this year. Drainage work in the area of the 4th green was commenced to remove excess water from the dam drainage area and the 4th rough area. This has now been completed and other areas of the course are being reviewed for further drainage work. The golf club has been generous in donating funds for this work.
The SES has taken over the leased land we granted them, next to the fire station, and have built their storage and training facilities. The council has constructed a colourbond fence at the rear of this property to hopefully prevent any stray golf balls entering their area. Landscaping on our side of the fence will be completed shortly.
The club became involved in a federal government program called “Broadband for Seniors”, supplying the club with 2 P.C.s and furniture. These P.C.s can be found in the Board Room and can be used by club members if contact is made through reception.
Due to increase in patronage in the dining area the equipment in the kitchen is receiving quite a workout and some of the equipment, being rather old, has broken down. The club has had to purchase a new deep fryer and a commercial dishwasher to replace the broken equipment. Further purchases may need to be made in the future.
After a break-in to the main bar area during the year the Board decided that our alarm system needed upgrading and a set of screamers (loud high pitched noise) were installed to deter would-be thieves.

Social. As a cost cutting measure the Board removed our Saturday entertainment as the bands were playing to minimal crowds. We also reduced our involvement in Australia Day celebrations supplying only sausages for competing sports people and removing the children’s rides.
The ever popular Christmas ham giveaway was continued but with a restricted number of hams being given away to reduce costs.
As a result of the downturn in trading in our local community our local IGA store changed its sponsorship of our Sunday raffle. Firstly the IGA $50 voucher was replaced by a container of groceries and then this was also removed. The club has covered this prize with a quality meat tray and this has kept raffle patrons happy.
A trivia night was run during the year with proceeds being directed to the Cooloola Crocs Swimming Club and was reasonably successful. A recent attempt at a trivia night had to be cancelled due to lack of numbers but it will be tried again during the year.
The band “Kronic Fatigue” played a number of Saturday nights (when the older generation has finished their sporting pursuits and gone home) to try and give the younger generation the entertainment they want. These nights were reasonably successful and the younger generation behaved themselves to the point that more may be held in the future.
A number of promotions and changes were made to our dining area during the year. The major change to our dining area was to give members a discount when dining, making it more expensive for visitors to eat. A family package for two adults and two children priced at $50 was tried. The roast night was started at a low $5.95 for a quality baked dinner. To cut costs in the kitchen it was decided that the wage bill (penalty rates) for Sunday trading was exceeding the turnover and from November Sunday trading was stopped. It was decided between the Board, management and our chef Craig that we should provide four specials each Thursday night to attract clientele. This move proved to be successful and so was extended firstly to Friday nights and recently to Saturday nights as well. Another promotion was to offer two steaks for the price of one from our standard menu on Saturday nights and this, also, has proved to be hugely successful. After increasing the patronage in the dining area we found that our expenses were too high and a price rise for all our promotional meals had to be increased to try to balance this area. These changes are still filtering through with recent figures showing some improvement.
Having Easter and Anzac Day on the same weekend this year caused varying problems with sporting events and entertainment being supplied by the club.
Changes were made to the Friday night member’s draw in an attempt to keep patrons at the club longer and to spread the money amongst more members. In conjunction with this change the bar snacks were discontinued. We will try to keep abreast of the needs of our members in this promotion and make changes as required.

General. The federal elections were held in August, 2010 and the resulting minority government has made a number of commitments to stay in power. At least two of these commitments affect our local area and the way that we operate our gaming area.
The protest against the proposed marine park in the area from Fraser Island to Double Island Point has been on the minds of all fisher people, as well as residents in the affected areas, for some time now and will continue until a positive outcome can be found. Meetings with ministers by delegates of our fishing community appear to be receiving sympathetic hearings but the protests must continue to achieve the result required.
The other item that the federal government has on its agenda is restrictions on poker machine gaming and ATM withdrawal limits in gaming venues. Clubs Australia, in conjunction with Clubs Queensland, has mounted a campaign to hopefully stop the deal between Gillard and Wilkie on this matter. Queensland has a number of laws to help the problem gambler, including self exclusion, but the gambler must decide, as alcoholics do when attending Alcoholics Anonymous, that they need help to stop their addiction. Having the government restrict the way people play poker machines will only turn them into other methods of gambling, including on-line gaming that currently has no restrictions placed upon it.
A number of natural disasters have occurred during this last year. There were floods that cut off our community from the outside world of Gympie and Maryborough but our inconvenience was minor compared to the flooding that occurred in other parts of Queensland. This was followed by cyclones in north Queensland, an earthquake and aftershocks that have almost wiped out the city of Christchurch in New Zealand and the tsunami in Japan with the associated nuclear melt down that may still affect us. These disasters have only had minor effects to our way of living and we are lucky to be in our small paradise.
Recently we have lost one of our life members with the passing of Charlie Walker. He was one of the inspirations in the early days of the club and will be missed by all.

The 2010-11 year was one of stabilisation and adaption to the reduction in trade. By the reduction in a number of services we have managed to continue trading with a minimum of disruption to the expectations of our members.

Stephen Wallis.
President, Tin Can Bay Country Club Inc.

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