Club set to clear debt

By Melissa Grant
THE newly elected president of the Beaconhills Country Golf Club is confident the club can wipe its $1.4 million debt.
Alex McKay, who was elected last week during a special general meeting, said the club needed to act like a retailer, inspire its members and restructure its debt to ensure a bright future.
Speaking to the Gazette yesterday, Mr McKay said while a tribunal’s recent refusal to grant the club permission to subdivide was disappointing, the club needed to regroup.
He said the club’s management was determined to return the golf course to the successful entity it once was.
The golf club was seeking to create seven rural residential lots, about 15 hectares each, from excess land to help pay off its debt.
The Victorian and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) ruled that a central argument supporting the proposal, the club’s poor finances and the possibility it could cease operating, wasn’t relevant when ruling about planning matters.
The process took almost three years and cost the golf club almost $200,000. “It would be fair to say that we’re not developers and perhaps without enough experience in that process,” Mr McKay said.
“Probably while we were (busy) being developers, we forgot to run the golf club for a while… we borrowed a lot of money.”
The club has since requested the assistance of Planning Minister Justin Madden as it looks at ways to subdivide the golf course.
“We have approached the local member (Tammy Lobato), and we have also sought some special representation from the (Planning) Minister,” Mr McKay said.
“(But) we can still sell some land, that’s still possible.”
Mr McKay, a member of the club for 25 years, said marketing would be a focus for the club over the next year. He said there would be a lot of specials and the club planned to differentiate the courses, aiming one at the social player and the other at the mid-market. Mr McKay said getting the club’s 700 members more involved during this time was important to help ensure the club’s success.
Mr McKay said the club also needed to restructure its debt.
“We basically have to take over $900,000 out of the hands of a financier and move that into a better interest rate environment,” he said.
Mr McKay said the club was seeking financial support from its 350 full members, who have been asked to contribute a voluntary levy of between $1 and $500.
He said things were looking promising with the levy already raising $40,000. “It’s been overwhelming,” Mr McKay said.