A shame clubs can’t connect

Here’s a question to those of you who read today’s front page story: is the Taupo¯ RSA overstepping the mark by asking the Taupo¯ District Council to help it force the Taupo¯ Bowling Club to share its Ferry Rd premises?

Or is Bowls Taupo¯ being intransigent by refusing to adapt to the changes around it? The RSA says the bowls club refused to properly consider its co-location proposal, an allegation the club denies.

It would be easy to characterise this situation as authoritarian military types using bullying tactics versus stubborn old bowlers refusing to share a privileged spot that doesn’t even belong to them. But unlike movies, real life doesn’t come in straightforward good versus bad, black and white situations. In real life, gestures get misinterpreted, what looks like an well-argued case to one person may look argumentative and demanding to another, and inability to compromise or see another’s point of view can sink a delicate negotiation before it even gets off the ground.

I can understand Bowls Taupo¯ members fearing that their club might get subsumed into the Taupo¯ RSA should they allow it to co-locate on Ferry Rd. While they are happy to let other clubs such as Lions or Rotary use their clubrooms as part of their general activities, they want to retain control of the facilities they have invested money in and continue to develop.

A clubs hub as envisaged by Taupo¯ RSA already operates successfully in Hastings and Marlborough. It has proposed setting up a Taupo¯ Clubs overarching governance structure consisting of seven trustees, including representatives from Bowls Taupo¯ and the RSA, plus independent trustees, all run with member clubs each having individual legal agreements that would set out each entity’s responsibilities and obligations.

The RSA Trust has half a million dollars it is willing to invest in the building, to add on a restaurant, kitchen and verandah overlooking Lake Taupo¯. It has high hopes that a restaurant in this prime location would be profitable. The bowls club thought otherwise. It is a shame that negotiations between the two clubs derailed, although it might have been ultimately harder work for the pair to join together than to continue on their separate ways. The unfortunate truth is that if we wind up losing one, or both clubs, whether now or in the future, Taupo¯ will be the poorer.