NEWS New team to lead RSL Move keeps club active
THE Darwin RSL sub-branch has voted in a new committee to keep the league going strong in the Territory.
Filled with many old members, the committee is made up of president Stephen Gloster, vice presidents Mick Coldwell and Colin James, and members Don Milford, Tom Berkley, Stuart Sporm, Jeff Biber and Eddie Joseph.
The committee will be in place until March when the AGM will mean half the positions will be re-elected.
Mr Gloster said one of the first jobs for the new committee would be to discuss what to do with the club’s site, which was all but destroyed but fire earlier this year.
“We only just got the latest engineer’s reports back last week, so for now we’re probably looking at sealing the building off for the wet season and then we’ll leave it until our AGM when we can have a discussion with our members as to whether they want to pull the whole thing down or rebuild,” he said.
“We’re at the stage that we can go either way – knocking it down or rebuilding. Most of our members would like to rebuild what we’ve got.
“We’re open for discussion and for people to come with any good ideas. It’s not the job of the committee to decide, it’s got to be a members’ choice.”
The RSL building on Cavenagh St was destroyed by fire in June.
Mr Gloster said the league was grateful for other clubs around town who opened their doors to RSL members and gave them co-rights.
The future of the Darwin league was up in the air just months ago when the committee voted to dissolve itself, citing conflict over the future direction of the club.
In the interim, RSL NT chief executive Kim Henshaw and Territory president Bronson Horn took over manage- ment of the club and service delivery for members, after a disagreement between the majority of committee members who wished to focus on veterans’ services and “a small group” whose priority was to maintain business operations “at all costs”.