Clubs Hastings committee and president resigns amid property sale furore, future uncertain

Worries for the future of Clubs Hastings less than a decade on from the merger of three historic clubs has led to the resignation of the committee ahead of a meeting requisitioned by the required 50 members for a vote of no confidence.

The Bowls Hastings and Clubs Hastings facilities in Victoria St. Photo / Michaela Gower.

With the vote no longer on the agenda, the meeting went ahead on Sunday to deal with one other item.

Endorsed by a majority vote was the $2 million-plus sale of the organisation’s purpose-built bowls facilities, part of the controversy that led to the resignation.

The outgoing president, vice-president and committee, which had accepted the resignation of its chief executive, remains in place pending the election of a new committee next Sunday, with at least two incumbents understood to be seeking re-election.

The 2016 merger, after several years of discussions amid tougher times for chartered clubs nationwide, linked chartered clubs the Hastings RSA, the Hibernian Club and the Heretaunga Club, which included bowling adjunct Bowls Heretaunga, itself formed by a merger, of the Heretaunga and Karamu bowling clubs in 2001, and which after the 2016 union changed its name to Bowls Hastings.

The National Services Club opted out and remains in central Hastings.

Amid the merger the clubs centralised on the Heretaunga Club site on the corner of Victoria and Hastings streets, neighbouring the bowling club on the former Karamu club site.

Reported to have had a combined membership of 4000 members at the time, the site was redeveloped to provide new facilities, opened in 2016, including the bar and restaurant, function rooms, pool tables, snooker tables, dart boards, big-screen TVs targeting sports and racing followers, gaming machines and the TAB, with a membership now understood to number about 1400.

Sources say the current issues started with the loss of a major gaming machines site revenue stream, which left Clubs Hastings struggling to pay its mortgage and led to the proposal to sell the bowling facility and its carpark which faces onto Albert St.

They told Hawke’s Bay Today that without the gaming machines proceeds or the sale the club was unable to meet its mortgage commitments and would “go under within three months,” a vulnerability that had been made clear by “the accountant”.

Bowls Hastings secretary David Porteous said his club, of about 70 members who are also members of Clubs Hastings, hadn’t been kept properly informed about what was happening to what had been its facilities.

A contract for the sale was agreed between the club and the prospective purchaser about six months ago, and remains conditional, but there was an attempt via the special meeting process last month to have it deemed “illegal”, said Porteous, who early on Wednesday afternoon remained unaware of the intended future use of the site.

It would have been interested in a lease, or sharing facilities with other known interested parties on a revenue basis, but it hadn’t had the chance and “now it’s too late”, he says.

He says the bowling club members are members of Clubs Hastings “to play bowls” and if the facilities were no longer available they would probably want to either merge with another club or join other clubs.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 51 years of journalism experience, 41 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.