Jarrod Marsden was re-elected as the president of the Cobar Miners Race Club committee at the group’s annual general meeting on Sunday.
In his president’s report to the meeting, Marsden praised the hard work of his committee over the past year saying it was their efforts that helped the Cobar club to win the Western Racing Association Club of the Year award.
He said over the past year he’d travelled to a number of different race meetings in the western area and there weren’t too many other clubs who put on better race meetings than Cobar.
Marsden said 2018 had been a challenging year for the club which is facing increasing costs.
He said to date the committee had been unable to secure grant funding for the construction of new toilets however they would keep working to gain funding.
Marsden reported the old problematic toilets have been demolished in readiness for the construction of new amenities.
He said water was also a big consideration for the club with an average cost $26,000 spent each year to ensure the grounds are watered.
The committee intends to make application to council for a raw water connection which should bring an estimated saving of $16,000pa.
Marsden advised the committee that the May race meeting procedures may need to be reviewed.
“The way we run the Picnic meeting is fine.
“The May meeting needs to take a step back and be run like the Picnic meeting or we need to take a step forward and run it as a full on corporate meeting,” Marsden said.
He said with increasing costs of farriers, the photo finish, vets, ambulance and other areas of the race meeting, the current format was not economically viable.
The club’s treasurer, Kym Miller, reported the club made a profit of $9,000 on the August Picnic meeting and almost $6,000 on the May meeting.
He said the club had also invested $14,000 this year on shelters.
Mr Miller was returned to the committee in the newly created role of treasurer/secretary with Tony Polack taking on the other newly created role of race day secretary.
Vince Sikora was re-elected as vice president and seven others were elected to the general committee.
The committee voted to hold monthly meetings on the third Sunday of the month.
Any locals interested in helping out the committee are invited to go along to their meetings.
