Now the dust has settled and we’re finally in our shiny new clubrooms, we thought we’d let you know how it all works…
Things are quite different. We have space, amazing change-rooms and facilities and a pitch that actually drains (!), but management-wise things are very different.
The Womens Memorial Playing fields are now owned by the State Government and managed by the Office of Recreation Sport and Racing (ORSR). This means that we are bound by a whole list of rules and regulations surrounding our use, access and who does what and where.
Our hire agreement allows us access to the fields, change-rooms and club-rooms (including the kitchen and bar) on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays until 30 September. We cannot sub-hire or use the facilities at any time outside of these days without a booking and we will pay extra for the additional usage. We are working through with ORSR possible additional hire arrangements and how this is to be managed, but at the moment our times are locked in.
We have two sets of keys with two nominated key-holders and people with security access. The key holders are the Vice-President (Mike Ewer) and the Secretary (Felicity Evans). We cannot lend the keys nor give the security access to anyone else. Yes, this is limiting, but is dictated to us by ORSR.
We are bound by strict rules regarding food handling, volunteer safety and usage regulations when it comes to the kitchen, canteen and bar. Workers behind the bar must be over 18 and there must be a person with a ‘Responsible Service of Alcohol’ (RSA) accreditation present. We cannot have workers in the kitchen under the age of 16. Only people who are rostered on in the canteen can be in the area. Mike and Felicity are happy to run the cooking of food and are looking forward to helpers to run the orders (deliver the food). Until we have developed full Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) and an official volunteer induction procedure (yes, that’s a requirement), it’s down to us to keep the chips cooking and the burgers grilling!
There are a slew of logging, reporting and other things that we (as the management team) have to keep on top of and we are under scrutiny to ensure that we are compliant.
While this all sounds ridiculously stringent (and it is kinda is), we have the very real joy of finally having a home to be proud of, to bask in and enjoy every week of our season from. The more our community supports its use, attend dinners and get involved with events, the more leverage we have to ask for more access and more ‘freedom’ to use the facilities in the years to come.