The Future of the Club

If you've watched my channel for any amount of time, you would likely be familiar with my club, or at least what it looks like. There have certainly been visitors to the club, even overseas visitors, who instantly recognise the location. The football oval, the tin shed, the temple in the background. Southern Cross Archery Club has been my first and only club, from when I started archery in the Common Trial Program, to my role as president and coach, and on the global stage as an ambassador to the sport online. It's a humble beginning, and perhaps I've never really gone far from this metaphorical tree. What is without doubt is that without this club being here, everything that has come about from my channel would not have happened. That's why I feel that I owe it to the club to support it through its uncertain future. This isn't the first time I've had to steer the club through a crisis. Unfortunately, we've had poor support from our local council. They have a lot of negative misconceptions around the sport, the people who play it, and the safety around it. Due to a combination of these factors, the council has decided to remove the club from its current location on Pinnell Reserve under a redevelopment master plan. According to this master plan, the entire reserve is being redeveloped to become a more modern, open-access venue with new facilities. The current buildings will all be demolished to be replaced with a multi-purpose facility. Our particular corner reserve, of which we've been on for around 20 years, will be replaced with public network courts and a playground. While we understand the overall strategic planning of renewing the space, opening it up to the public and connecting it to the wider green spaces around the area and by the river, the master plan has no provision for the future of the archery club. The council has effectively offered an extremely poorly thought alternative – the use of the proposed multi-purpose hall for indoor archery. Anyone who has even seen archery can pick up how ridiculous this sounds. We know that the council has searched up indoor archery and has decided that it's a thing that we can simply switch to. Same thing, right? Anyone familiar with the sport knows that archery is an outdoor sport. The standard format of archery, including competitive archery and Olympic archery, is outdoor. Indoor is done as an alternative during what other sports consider as the off-season, allowing a club to run events all year round. It is brainless to think that you can shove an archery club into an indoor hall that we're supposed to share with other clubs. They have also provided the option of working with the local high school to use their grounds. I know for a fact that the council have not taken this step to see how feasible this is, and this is an empty offer. I know because I work at that high school and I've had the discussion already years ago. That is unfortunately all that the council have offered. What that means is that the master plan has no provision for the existence of the club and the council has up to this point not committed to providing a suitable location for the continued operations of this club. This threatens the existence of the club as the council does not see the value of having their only archery club in this part of Melbourne and have not indicated a serious commitment to keep it going. The master plan is in its final stages of its draft and we are doing what we can on our side to gather community support to show that it isn't just a private club of a dozen members that the council have led themselves to believe, but a community club that serves hundreds of locals and appeals to a much wider base of support has planted a seed of a support network and resource bank that has grown the sport worldwide. For those who are interested in sharing their positive experiences with sport, especially in how it would help the community, Maribyrnong City Council has a public survey online. While most of you are not based in our area or have visited Pinellas Reserve, we need to show the council that the sport is relevant everywhere. This is my club and whether or not I'm able to continue with my sport and what I do for the global community hinges on whether we see this one through to the end.