September 17, 2024
There are two new faces on the executive committee of the Nanango Race Club after a fiery Annual General Meeting held on Sunday.
Michael Bourke and Robert Dugdell have joined the committee, replacing Wayne Hancock and Jason Livingstone.
The 2024-25 committee is: Andrew Green (president), Bruce Webb (vice-president), Leisa Green (treasurer), Michael Bourke, Robert Dugdell, Peter Jackson, Bernie Duncombe, James Webb and Barry Green.
Graham Knight was named as Club Patron, replacing the late Reg McCallum who died earlier this year.
The committee was re-elected despite an intense social media campaign – and an anonymous Change.org petition by a “Tina Google” – calling for the current team to be ousted.
Cr Jane Erkens took over the chair at Sunday’s meeting to conduct the election, which was held by secret ballot.
The ballot counting was then scrutineered by Cr Linda Little and race day secretary Marika Burrows. Neither are members of the association.
Speaking after the meeting, re-elected president Andrew Green said there were 46 members of the association at the meeting, but the actual attendance was nearly double that after an invitation was posted by someone on Facebook inviting people to just turn up at the Lee Park Racecourse and have a say.
“That’s not how AGMs work,” Andrew said. “There were a lot of people calling stuff out that weren’t members.”
The campaign to oust the committee began ahead of the 2023 AGM, sparked mainly by the closure in March of that year of the club’s training track by Queensland Racing due to safety concerns.
“It’s been shut for 18 months and they’re still going on about it,” Andrew said.
“Racing Queensland has stated on numerous occasions that they’re not currently putting the money up because it’s not financially viable to do so.
“And the club cannot afford to do it.”
Andrew said another complaint was about the club’s stables, which were about 40 years old and not being used because the footings had rotted out.
“We can’t afford to fix them, either,” he said.
The stables – which are for permanent accommodation of horses – are not the tie-up stalls which are used on race days.
- Related article: AGM Re-Elects Race Club Team
Ah, the infighting and politics of not-for-profit organisations and clubs. Sadly, you don’t have to look too far in Kingaroy, Murgon and Wondai for other clubs with similar or worse problems.
And yet, people wonder why less and less people put their hands up for roles on their local clubs (sporting clubs, festivals, carnivals, school P&Cs etc). Odds are most people have either copped the short end of the stick already, or they’ve heard rumours and read articles/petitions like these and aren’t game enough to volunteer.
Regardless, a query regarding the ballot and ballot counters mentioned above. If my interpretation of the above article is correct, it indicates that the two people who counted the ballots were not members of the association. This seems to fly in the face of the information on the Office of Fair Trading’s website which states:
If your association uses a ballot for elections, you’ll need to appoint two ballot counters. They must:
– be members of the association
– not be candidates for the positions
– announce the results at the meeting.
https://www.qld.gov.au/law/laws-regulated-industries-and-accountability/queensland-laws-and-regulations/associations-charities-and-non-for-profits/incorporated-associations/running-an-incorporated-association/incorporated-association-management-committee/who-on-committee
The club would however have to refer to their constitution as it may be older than the information available on OFT’s website and potentially provide different rules for the ballot/ballot counters.
I suspect that Councillors (or other people who chair AGM’s) should better their knowledge regarding meeting procedures. Given that meeting procedures and rules are generally customised for each club based on their constitution, a copy of the constitution should probably be forwarded to the chairperson prior to attending an AGM so they can ensure the meeting is being run correctly for each club.
Also a fun fact, the OFT has a “Nanango Racing Club Inc” registered as an incorporated entity. However the ABN for the club is registered under “Nanango Race Club Inc”. Assuming these are the same entity, the difference in name should probably be remedied as it may become a problem in the future. Quite possibly something the club is not actually aware of…
We reported that the two people “scrutineered” the count, ie. they did not conduct the count, they oversaw the counting process to make sure everything was done properly.