Armidale City Bowling Club has embraced technology, in the process scoring three State awards at an industry gala dinner at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre last week.
The club won awards for Outstanding Innovation in Technology in all clubs, Encouragement of Community Sport & Recreation and Best Club Keno at the ClubsNSW Awards for Excellence.
Armidale City Bowling Club impressed judges with its investments in kitchen equipment, online rostering and social media improvements for the technology award.
After 20 years with little or no investment in technology associated with the club catering, the club devised a strategic technology project to introduce a suite of innovative applications including ovens programmed via computer, radio communication devices between all kitchens, electronic temperature recorders for fridges, wireless staff summons devices and online buying with live recipe updates
The club also developed their social media by creating Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare accounts to communicate better with its community.
Armidale City Bowling Club also won the Encouragement of Community Sport & Recreation award for its increased financial and in-kind support to community sporting groups. In the past year, the club has increased its support toward local amateur sports by 3 per cent to $44,596.
The club has encouraged the growth of football in the region, seeing a 25 per cent increase in participants in the past four years, with player numbers increasing from 2258 in 2008 to 3010 in 2011.
“Out of all our awards, to get this in the medium clubs category is a real achievement,” said CEO Patrick Crick.
“This club is at the very low end of medium so we are really still just a larger small club so, to beat some of the clubs with revenue bases and resources sometimes six times our size is really pleasing.
“We have built a culture here of not letting anything hold us back and focusing on our members and making sure that we service their needs as well as those of our employees.
“We drive ourselves usually beyond our means to achieve success and secure the awards that we have.”
Club Senior Executive Phil Wheaton was also honoured last week with a life membership of the Northern Inland Academy of Sport at a special presentation at the Armidale City Bowling Club for his support of local sport.
