Gold Coast club shares best bowlo in Australia gong
Club Helensvale shared honours with Manning Memorial Bowls Club in Western Australia as Australia’s best Bowls Club for 2015-16 as reported by the Gold Coast Bulletin. Sydney has its Harbour Bridge, Coffs Harbour the Big Banana and the Gold Coast now boasts the best bowls club in Australia.
It was little more than a tin shed when it was founded back in 1979 but now with around 20,000 financial members, Club Helensvale is one of the best bowls clubs in the country.
Club Helensvale this week took out the Bowls Australia Club of the Year Award, a gong it will share with Manning Bowls Club in Western Australia for the next 12 months.
It comes as no surprise to CEO Len Brunt, who first joined Club Helensvale as bar manager in 1994.
“It was the smallest bowls club in southeast Queensland – (we) only had 200 members and nine poker machines,” he said.
“We’ve just continued to grow. Now we have 210 poker machines.”
The CEO attributes much of the club’s success to the growth of Helensvale in the Coast’s northern corridor.
The 65-year-old father-of-three said Club Helensvale was now bursting at the seams, with documents lodged with council to expand the clubhouse south into the carpark, with additional plans for another carpark nearby in the near future.
“This area has grown but also, we’re virtually the social centre of Helensvale and we have great facilities,” he said.
Helensvale has one of the best records in the state for producing elite-level players, including Jackaroos Australian representatives Nathan Rice, Brett Wilkie, Mark Casey and Lynsey Clarke.
Mr Brunt, who runs the club with his wife Julie, says this is all due to elite players being paid by the club for their time.
“We have an incentive scheme if they play for Queensland or Australia,” he said. Queensland representatives receive $250 a day and national squad members receive $1000 a day while in competition.
“I don’t know of any other club in Queensland to do that,” Mr Brunt said.
Caption- Club Helensvale wins Bowling Club of the Year as reported by the Gold Coast Bulletin.
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