How it all began
In the late 1960’s land in Mollymook was donated to a breakaway group of bowlers from Milton Ulladulla. The breakaway was required because Milton Ulladulla club was becoming too small to cater for the numbers of men and women bowlers.
Local developers building estates in the region were required by council to include parks and recreation as part of the estates. This resulted in one of those developers, Middle Harbour Investments Limited, donating the land on the condition that it be used to establish a recreation club.
To kick things off, meetings of men and women were held to formally establish a Bowling Club at Mollymook. The meetings were held at Mr. Bert Jackson’s Motel at Ulladulla and were presided over by Mr. Ivan Jeboult who was the original president of the club. It was at these meetings that the name of the club was agreed to be Mollymook Beach Bowling and Recreation Club and so the club was formed in 1971.
The Hard Work to Come
The donated land was far from pristine and in fact was considered to be a swamp due to the creek that ran along the northern perimeter. In order to prepare the land for bowling greens, extensive work was required and the use of volunteers was invaluable to the success.
For the next 2 years the volunteers built the 2 greens and the fill required to build up and level the ground was provided by the developer from excavation work on the various houses being built. As the club had no funds, members loans were provided to cover the cost of the green development and the building of the greenkeeper shed/clubhouse.
The greenkeeper shed served from time to time as a meeting room for the directors. Refreshments were also sold from the shed. The alcohol sold was legalised each time by applying for Booth Licenses which were issued on a temporary basis under the Liquor Act of 1912.
The original directors continued to develop the club and would take turns holding their Board meetings at one another’s house. Their main goal was to build a new Club House and source the funds to do so.
The Club House
In December 1972 a new branch of the Commonwealth Bank was about to open in Ulladulla. The new president of the Mollymook Bowling Club, Dick Forster, was a very good friend of the Managing Director of the Commonwealth Bank in Sydney, Bede Callaghan, who soon after become Sir Bede Callaghan.
Dick spoke to Sir Bede and asked whether the bank would be interested in lending the club the money necessary to build the new clubhouse and Sir Bede said yes. Pete Robinson, the manager of the Ulladulla Commonwealth Bank branch, was approached by Dick Forster who told Pete, “You don’t know this, but you are going to lend me the money to build a clubhouse for the Mollymook Bowling Club” Pete responded with “Well that’s very nice of me”. So, the clubhouse project was given the green light, with a loan of $98,000.
The building of the clubhouse proved difficult given the state of the land and costs including pile driven concrete piers. It was a massive undertaking and the final cost came in at around $112,000.
The Struggle Years
The clubhouse was built; however, the club was struggling to turn a profit and, in fact was not able to make payments on the loan. In terms of running the club and to save on costs, directors and members would volunteer behind the bar, the president virtually acting as the secretary manager. There was one person in the office and she basically ran the club with advice from the then Secretary, Treasurer and President as needed and one bar manager who handled all the running of the bar, but still the debt escalated. At one point the interest rates were in excess of 25%, putting further strain on the club and mounting the debt to over $200k.
The relationship and friendship with the bank were paramount to the club remaining open along with the fellowship of the members and the sub clubs, in particular in those early days the ladies contributed heavily to the revenue-greater than the men even though there was fewer of them.
In the late 1980’s the club’s financial position prompted advice that it would be best to wind things up so as to not make things worse. However, the Milton Ulladulla football club moved into the Bill Andriski Oval close to the club and a partnership was formed between the two organisations. This initially proved to be a great move, and, with extra members joining and visiting the club, income in all areas was up and the club was doing well. The big night for the club was Friday where there was a band and a dance night. While this was good for the club, complaints were coming from residents regarding noise and other disturbances. Given these problems, the board decided to dissolve the partnership with the football club in the early 1990’s.
The band and dance nights on Friday were replaced by ‘market night’ consisting of raffles and these continue to this day. These nights were equally successful for the club and, as a result, by 1993 the club was finally debt free with all borrowings, including member loans, repaid.
Getting back into the black could not have been achieved without the hard-working Executive and Directors of the club and the wonderful volunteers who gladly gave up the time and effort to achieve the common goal. It is good to know that this club spirit is still alive in our club today.
Later years
Until the late 1990’s the club’s bistro/restaurant was in the down stairs area and this wasn’t ideal. Therefore, a major extension was undertaken which allowed the bistro to move upstairs. There was a snooker room (which has since been overtaken by a cellar and cold space), a new poker machine area and a much-needed outdoor space.
In 2015 the area under the outdoor deck was enclosed which gave the bowlers a new unisex locker room that continues to be the envy of other clubs within the district. The extension also provided the club with added and vital storage space, a dedicated bowls office and a sign in registration room completed the works.
What a Year (2020)
In December 2019 an outbreak of the virus to be known as COVID-19 was detected in Mainland China and fairly quickly spread across nations around the world including Australia.
As the virus started spreading, Australia commenced imposing restrictions on businesses and in particular hospitality venues. In the initial stages of restrictions, separation or distancing and adequate hygiene was seen as the key to minimizing the spread. Initially this affected the club’s turn over, however, restrictions turned into total closure of clubs, pubs and all businesses with the exception of essential services.
The closure of the club (23 March 2020) prompted an opportunity to revamp the interior design, the current design included roughly 8 different colour schemes and it was quickly decided to choose one colour for the main upstairs area of the club.
With the help of some staff and a core group of bowling volunteers work on painting the club commenced. Painting of the main area of the club, the outside area and all 5 toilets was completed on the day announcements for Clubs and Pubs to re-open (1 June 2020). PAGE 4 With the club reopening, it was now time to start on the exterior of the club and repaint the existing two-tone green with a more contemporary look and feel, again a main colour was chosen with a contrasting colour included.
Over the next 5 months the complete exterior of the building was repainted, again by the core group of bowling volunteers. This included painting the southern wall that surrounds the bowling greens, the greenkeeper shed, the BBQ pergola. Along the way many minor maintenance repairs were also completed.
In addition to the interior painting, new (second hand) carpet was sourced from the Campbelltown Catholic Club, thus replacing the 2 different carpet areas to the one uniform look and feel.
Painting the exterior of the club meant the club name was painted over, in early 2021 new signs were put in place and to stand out the club board decided to shorten the name simply to MOLLY BOWLO.