February 2012 President's newsletter
This last month has been a repetition of January last year but without the disastrous floods that caused enormous damage to both Queensland and throughout Australia. The “wet” season dropped sufficient rain upon us to make the celebration of Australia Day a bit of a fizzer. Both golf and bowls competitions were called off due to the weather. It appears that the wet weather has not yet finished and there may be more to irritate those who wish to enjoy the great outdoors. Whilst we are suffering from the constant rain and high humidity those in other states are suffering from extreme temperatures, although, thank goodness, it doesn’t seem to be affecting the cricket and the tennis.
The dates for the upcoming state and council elections have finally been announced. The first will be the state election, to be held on Saturday 24th March, and the second will be the postponed council elections, to be held on Saturday 28th April (formerly on Saturday 31st March). There have been a number of candidates nominating for our local division of Gympie Regional Council (Division 1) and electioneering will need to be delayed to save on costs. It will be interesting to see the results of these two elections and to see what these results will deliver to the people. The club remains apolitical and wishes the best of luck to all candidates.
On a more serious note one of our bus drivers was attacked outside the club during the month and required hospitalisation at Gympie. He has returned home and is recovering slowly. We wish him the best in his recovery. The assailant will be facing Gympie Court in early February.
The excise on alcoholic beverages will again be increasing at the beginning of the month and, although we absorbed the previous increase, it is necessary to increase the cost of our drinks to compensate for this increase.
Trading. This period of the year is always quiet with a lack of visitors to the area and the local clientele recovering from all the celebrations. With the world economic conditions still extremely fragile we can only expect the same trading over this time.
Sport. The golfing ladies will be completing their hibernation returning to the golf course at the beginning of the month if the weather is kind. The bowling ladies did manage to get one game in before the weather caused havoc returning to the greens mid January.
The golf competitions return to their usual format during this month with pennants starting during the next month. A decision on rescheduling the Australia Day championship should be made shortly.
February is also a quiet time for our bowlers allowing them to hone their skills before starting pennants and their championships.
Promotions. The major celebrations are now over and it is the time to re-evaluate the way we present our social activities. After the changes that were made to our restaurant a settling period for our new chef Nadine was never on the cards and she was thrown in the deep end. She has made a positive impact to our dining facilities and we look forward to increased patronage. Many favourable comments have been made regarding the quality of the meals and if you haven’t yet tried them I would suggest that you do shortly.
We will be continuing our great raffles with meat tray prizes being supplied directly from our kitchen. See if you can win one of them.
Our club can only be as good as the members and your support of your club will be greatly appreciated.
See you at the T.C.B. Country Club.
Stephen Wallis.
President TCBCC