Steve Sellars pouring a beer at the Binalong Community Club.
With a population of tipping close to 550 people, Binalong is used to punching well above its weight and always has been. The Community Club is no different, with plenty of upcoming attractions on the Club’s calendar.
Steve Sellars is the Manager of the Club and his work is diverse to say the least. He looks after the golf course during the week and is ably assisted by a large number of volunteers.
From Friday onwards he heads indoors to look after the day to day running of the Club. Steve keeps the course neat and tidy on the mower and with the chainsaw. When indoors, he pours beers, looks after the running of the new kitchen and organises the events, as well as selling raffle tickets to raise money for the community.
Steve enjoys coming to work at the club. “It’s diverse, you are outside, it’s a bugger when it’s cold. But you get new people coming through who haven’t played golf before and everyone is just so appreciative of what we do here. I find it pretty gratifying. During the week I’m outdoors and on Saturday and Sunday I’m pulling beers and selling raffle tickets. It’s the diversity of the job.”
Steve said, “It’s good to get some of this information out to the people in the community and the district, probably 10 people do the amount of work just to open the doors for the community. We have just had Council out and they have given the kitchen the tick of approval, there is $35,000 worth of new gear in the kitchen. It is a community club, a not for profit. A lot of the work has been done by the committee and local tradies who have invested their time.”
The Club kitchen contains a new coolroom, stainless steel benches, dishwashers and ovens. There are bookings for engagement parties and weddings and presentation nights. The Club is looking forward to being able to offer a Sunday lunch in the future. The Club also sells take away beer and cartons of beer and Steve has extended the wine list. He returned last week from Griffith with some new wines for patrons to buy with their meals. For a sitting on a Sunday evening the Club averages 50 dinners and the Club offers pizzas made on site. They will be looking at different ways to implement a member’s card soon. The goal is to boost the Club’s ongoing membership with the hope to reach 250 paid members. There are plans for a deck to overlook the Bowling Green and much of the steel for the deck is already ready to go.
Steve comes from a hospitality background and spent 6 years at Burrinjuck with his wife Lisa, he said “A lot of this community here, we had already met, with vans and fishing. The layout of the course is fantastic, volunteers spray and work pretty hard to keep it the way it is. By getting more people to play golf we get more people interested in the course. We have an open day in a couple of weeks, it’s quite bizarre, a couple of weeks ago you could have tobogganed down the first and now with this weather the mowers have to keep on top of it. There is no watering, they are sand greens but it is a really good course.”
The Club will be commencing with Business House Bowls on a Friday evening in the near future. Steve said, “The Club is open from 4pm on Friday until we close, from midday Saturday and 11am Sunday.” Luke Dickens will be performing on September 28 6:30pm in conjunction with the Wellness Fair. The BPS P and C will be running part of the night and funds raised will go towards the students. One of the biggest nights the Club has held in recent times was a fundraiser which was a cocktail party mixed with golf, bowls and auctions. It was very well received.
If you haven’t been out to Binalong for a while it might be time to have a look at what the Club has to offer.
