{"id":352793,"date":"2024-09-17T14:27:05","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T04:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=352793"},"modified":"2024-11-19T14:10:14","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T04:10:14","slug":"race-club-committee-re-elected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2024\/09\/17\/race-club-committee-re-elected\/","title":{"rendered":"Race Club Committee Re-Elected"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nanango Race Club president Andrew Green<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

September 17, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are two new faces on the executive committee of the Nanango Race Club after a fiery Annual General Meeting held on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Michael Bourke and Robert Dugdell have joined the committee, replacing Wayne Hancock and Jason Livingstone.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Graham Knight was named as Club Patron, replacing the late Reg McCallum who died earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The committee was re-elected despite an intense social media campaign – and an anonymous Change.org petition<\/a> by a “Tina Google” – calling for the current team to be ousted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cr Jane Erkens took over the chair at Sunday’s meeting to conduct the election, which was held by secret ballot.<\/p>\n

The ballot counting was then scrutineered by Cr Linda Little and race day secretary Marika Burrows. Neither are members of the association.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“That’s not how AGMs work,” Andrew said.\u00a0“There were a lot of people calling stuff out that weren’t members.”<\/p>\n

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\u2019s training track by Queensland Racing due to safety concerns.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

“It’s been shut for 18 months and they’re still going on about it,” Andrew said.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“And the club cannot afford to do it.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“We can’t afford to fix them, either,” he said.<\/p>\n

The stables – which are for permanent accommodation of horses – are not the tie-up stalls which are used on race days.<\/p>\n