Glasshouse Mountains Sports Club brings in commercial hospitality managers
By Kirra Livingstone
THE Glasshouse Mountains Sports Club has announced a partnership with a hospitality management company to reintroduce dining and poker machines as part of a plan to boost the club’s revenue.
Rumours recently circulated that the club was on the brink of being sold to an external buyer, but Club President, Stephen Forster, dismissed the claims.
“First of all, the land is owned by the state government,” Mr Forster said.
“But we are certainly looking at endeavours to generate money and part of that would be ideally to try and restart the commercialisation component of the sports club.
There’s no takeover of the club, we’re looking at strategies around hiring hospitality companies to run the commercial aspect on our behalf.
Everything remains in the sports club’s power; they have overall control.”
Over the weekend, Mr Forster confirmed that they were officially partnering with the company ‘Hospitality Edge’, to manage the commercial side of the club.
He expressed hope that the revived dining and gaming facilities could be operational by next year, though no specific timeline had been set.
“We’re still working out the finer details and there’s a few other bits and pieces,” he said.
“Ideally we’d love to open up in January, but there’s still too many variables at play to give an exact date.”
Mr Forster emphasised that while the club is not facing financial difficulties, the move is aimed at securing its long-term sustainability.
“Expenses are going up and up, and it’s just putting more and more stress on the volunteers, and we’ve been here for 100 years so it’d be a shame to see a really big green space go,” he said.
“The other big push is to try and make the sports club more profitable and accessible for everyone to play.”
The club previously offered dining and poker machines until 2012, when financial struggles forced the closure of these services.
“We had to make some hard decisions about trying to make sure the club was sustainable for sport, which was our primary objective,” Mr Forster said.
“A lot of work has been done by past committees and the current committee, and now it’s time to look towards the future.”
kirra@gcnews.com.au