Turf war for Rotary Club

Stompers spat continues

THE Rotary Club of Geelong says it is not to blame for up to 20 stompers receiving their marching orders from the Geelong Racing Club.

Some stompers, who venture onto the track after races to replace divots in the turf, are facing a cut in hours as the club trials outsourcing some stomping duties to Rotary.

Rotary Club of Geelong secretary Geoff Everett said Rotary was unaware of the club’s arrangements with the regular stompers when they agreed to take on some stomping duties.

“The racing club has their regular stompers there and we’re just assisting them at the race meetings,” he said.

“We hope to supply about 8-10 stompers per race meeting at this stage. We are getting a payment of some sort to the community service side of our organisation.”

Mr Everett said he did not believe the Rotary Club of

Geelong had anything to feel guilty about by stepping in to fill the stomping gap.

“You’ll find in Victoria there are a number of Rotary clubs involved with the different racing clubs,” he said.

“Geelong Racing Club were involved with another Rotary Club prior to us doing this work and it’s just part and parcel of Rotary trying to put something back into the community. I wasn’t aware of the situation with the existing stompers and the Geelong Racing Club.”

Mr Everett said the Rotary club started providing stompers for last Saturday’s race meeting and the arrangement worked well.

“There are a number of stompers there who will be there forever and we are not replacing them,” he said.

“As far as the work is involved, it’s not overly onerous but we have experienced stompers with us to make sure we do it right.

“It’s supervised, I suppose you’d say.

“If you don’t do the job properly, you have to go back and do it again.”

Stomper Bill Wilson, who was one of the stompers affected, said he had been in contact with the AWU over the lack of consultation from the club over the changes.

“They’ve (Rotary) got our jobs and we want to know what rate of pay they’re getting,” he said.

“We were told the (Rotary) volunteers are getting no money but the Rotary Club is.”