The new board of Coledale RSL Club is hoping the sale of half its poker machines will rake in about $100,000 to fund a revamp of the seaside venue that closed last year amid deep financial troubles.
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New secretary/manager Greg Todd said he and the rest of the board knew the reopening would be a challenge, but believed plans to change how the club operates would attract new clientele.
On Saturday, the shuttered club - which said it would close for good last December - announced it would stage a comeback after members voted unanimously to sell off at least half of its 12 gaming machines.
Mr Todd said the pokies sale had always been a possibility, despite a move to do so being voted down last year.
The money-making plan resurfaced after board members were approached by locals over summer, asking whether it might be possible to run the club on a volunteer basis, he said.
"We had to work out some way of generating some instantaneous income, and they are the assets we own," he said.
"We don't have anything else to sell. So we thought we'd sell off half of them, retain the other half and that will be enough, at this point in time, to get us going again."
He said the market for poker machines had changed significantly over the pandemic, with demand for entitlements dropping off amid shutdowns and space restrictions.
"You have to sell them in lots of three, and I got told a few years ago that a lot of three was going for $150,000," he said.
"But then because of COVID, the bigger clubs had to put spaces in between the pokies, so they ended up having a surplus so the value has dropped significantly."
He said when the club now believed they would get between $50,000-60,000 for each lot of three.
"We're looking at this point in time of just selling the six, but everything was considered," he said.
"The income for poker machines has been dropping over the years, and that could be because of a change in demographics in the area. The people who like to play poker machines might not be in our local area any more, so the income decreases."
To save on labour costs after the reopening - planned in time for the Easter long weekend - members also voted to adopt a volunteer staffing model.
Mr Todd said more than 90 people had turned up to vote on the relaunch plans on Saturday, with close to 50 people signing up to volunteer in the running of the club.
"Since then I've had even more people approach me to say they'd like to help out, so it's a real members generated drive to make it happen," he said.
He said the club had found an experienced hospitality operator who was likely to come on board to run things, but that much of the rest of the labour needed to run the club would be done by volunteers.
"There are some volunteers who've said 'I'm not so keen to work behind the bar, but I'll mow the lawns' or others might come and do the vacuuming or something," he said.
"It saves labour costs."
"We're very keen on making this work, but we know we've got some work in front of us."
While it's early days, he said the plan was to run on reduced hours with the former seven-day-a-week venue only open from Thursday to Sunday, as well as public holidays and school holidays where possible to make the most of seasonal beachgoers and campers.
It will also make some changes inside the club - and to the menu - to attract new customers.
"We know we definitely want to target women and families, do a bit of reorganisation inside the club, move the remainder of the poker machines to the back and open up that area as a family and function room," he said.
"We'll be reinventing ourselves a bit, understanding who our market is and what they want, and we've got the expert advice on that."
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