STOCKTON RSL and Citizens Club has been left with no choice but to consider merging with another entity more than 170 kilometres away, after the more than 15 Hunter RSL clubs failed to heed its call to amalgamate.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Club president Stephen Spruce has written to the 3500 members asking them to attend an extraordinary general meeting at 11am on Sunday July 3 and vote for the club to join forces with the City of Sydney RSL Club.
The move will see the Stockton RSL and Citizens Club dissolved and the ownership of all its assets – including the 44 gaming machine entitlements – transferred to Sydney.
Sydney will continue to operate the Douglas Street premises as either Stockton RSL Club or Stockton RSL and will provide $500,000 in the first year for maintenance. But it will be allowed after five years to consult with members about ceasing trade from the premises.
Mr Spruce wrote to members the amalgamation was necessary to “ensure the sustainability of our club”.
The club’s latest financial report indicated it made a profit of $141,040 last financial year, after sustaining a $182,382 loss in the year to June 30, 2014.
“After a number of years of investigation, feasibility studies and strategic research and planning, the board of the club decided to call for expressions of interest for an amalgamation partner, in an effort to explore its options and with a view to ensuring the ongoing operation of our club,” Mr Spruce wrote to members. He told the Newcastle Herald on Friday the club couldn’t “keep going dog-paddling” and didn’t want to get to the point where it had to sell its nearby residential holding or carpark to “get us out of trouble”.
“In the next couple of years hundreds of clubs will go the wall,” Mr Spruce said.
“We know it has been a sensitive issue and there has been someone handing out negative flyers about it.”
The club called in December 2014 for expressions of interest to amalgamate and received responses from City of Sydney RSL and Stockton Bowling Club.
The bowling club’s proposal included closing the RSL premises “as soon as practicable”.
Long-term member Terry Fitzgerald said the still-viable RSL was built by the community and he felt “the soul of it should not be lost because of concerns over profitability”.
“I hesitate about all of those assets being transferred to Sydney,” he said.
The club’s origins lie in the 1935 formation of the RSL Sub Branch. It leased the land from 1939, bought the land in 1958 and set up the company Stockton RSL and Citizens Club in 1972.
The sub-branch sold the land-holdings and club-house to Stockton RSL and Citizens Club in 1989.
They have operated independently ever since and are separate entities.
Helen Gregory
Helen Gregory joined the Newcastle Herald in 2010. She is the masthead’s education reporter and has written for the H2 and Weekender sections, as well as across a range of issues. Helen is a Walkley Award winning journalist and was also part of the Newcastle Herald team that won the United Nations World Environment Day Media Award for Environmental Reporting.
Helen Gregory joined the Newcastle Herald in 2010. She is the masthead’s education reporter and has written for the H2 and Weekender sections, as well as across a range of issues. Helen is a Walkley Award winning journalist and was also part of the Newcastle Herald team that won the United Nations World Environment Day Media Award for Environmental Reporting.
