Four weeks to save popular community club
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A POPULAR community-based sports club is on the brink of closing unless more people can be attracted to serving on its governing committee.
Despite having a thriving membership of over 50 – including 20 or so junior members – Portgordon Bowling Club's (PBC) recent AGM saw no-one step forward to fill the vacancies on the committee. A total of nine positions, six of them office bearers plus three ordinary members, need to be filled for the club to continue running.
Should nobody come forward soon, the bowling club, which was formed in 1981, will slip into the pages of history.
However, PBC secretary Iain Paterson stressed that should the club sadly have to fold, it would be a loss not just to the bowlers but to the wider community as a whole.
He told the Advertiser: "It would be a fair loss to the community if the club closed, it would leave quite a hole.
"The Post Office currently hold an outreach service at the clubhouse twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays which moved here after its previous location in the local Key Store closed. From what I understand this is a very popular and well used facility and what would happen to it if the club was gone?
"The local OAP group also meet in the clubhouse free of charge.
"We're a real community club, it's not just about the bowlers."
While there may be a shortage of people willing to serve on the committee, the club itself has, over the past few years, continue to buck the trend many organisations find themselves in, boasting a healthy and growing membership plus success on and off the field.
"We've built up a really healthy junior section over the years, which all started when the local primary school asked of they could come down to the club," Mr Paterson continued.
"Of course, we were delighted to welcome them and from there we started running coaching sessions.
"As a result the parents started coming along and having a go themselves with most of them thoroughly enjoying it and many went on to join the club. Over a two-year period club membership doubled and has been going well since then.
"Two or three of the juniors have gone on to represent the club at a higher level and have been coming on leaps and bounds.
"We've got a talented adult section, too and Portgordon has won the Banffshire Mixed Triples for the last three years in a row.
"For a small club we've been very successful."
The hard-working committee and membership have also brought about many improvements to the facilities at the club over the years, including winning grant funding to renovate the kitchen and decorate internally, as well as purchasing a second hand portable cabin which was revamped and transformed into a changing area for bowlers, complete with lockers.
Mr Paterson added: "We all understand that people have such busy lives and have so many commitments with work, family and so on but this club is worth saving.
"If the club folds then it's gone forever."
A forthcoming special meeting in January will provide the last life-line to save the community-based club from the tragedy of extinction.
Sunday, January 5 will see the club hold an EGM in a last-ditch attempt to persuade members to volunteer to serve on the committee.
The meeting, which will be held in the clubhouse, is due to get under way at 2pm. All members are respectfully invited to attend and new members will also be made most welcome.
