For the past 18 months, the Oamaru Rowing Club has been staring at a hole in its books — and it has until the spring to plug the leak. When Harbourside Fitness leased out the gym on the club’s second floor, it added roughly $15,000 a year to the club’s bottom line.
When the fitness club’s owners left for Australia in 2016, the rowing club’s financial security appeared bleak.
Club president Athol Smith said initially the plan was to lease out the upstairs to another group, but the non-profit organisation found the cost to change the use of the building to comply with the building code was prohibitive.
Alterations and other red tape would have cost the club $150,000 to "go away from the gym" and the club "decided it was going to be too much".
"That’s all fallen through, anyway," Mr Smith said.
Instead, there were "a couple of options now that we don’t need a change of use for".
Head coach Owen Gould, who began rowing with the club in the 1962-63 season, said before the departure of Harbourside Fitness the club was in pretty good financial shape.
"We had built up a bank balance before that. It is just starting to run out now," Mr Gould said.
"With no revenue coming in it just makes it hard work.
"Where before, if we wanted a set of sculls or some sweep oars, things like that, we just went and bought them, because we had money coming in."
The club planned to open up the space now occupied by the gym to community groups. It would clean up the waterfront-facing section and hoped for some corporate interest there, as well. Mr Smith said to break even the club needed about 45 fee-paying members, which it had last year, but securing new members would be key.
The club had missed out on a couple of fundraising opportunities already this year and "it’s not always easy going for grants," he said.
There was some interest from community groups in leasing the space and "yoga, or dancing" were possibilities.
They would not require a change of use.
Established in 1886, the club has produced many top rowers: an Oamaru crew won gold at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, the club also produced coaching legend Rusty Robertson, Olympic gold medallist Gary Robertson, Olympian Lex Clark and coxswain Peter Lindsay.
More recently, the club’s Mark Taylor was crowned Otago rower of the year in May at Rowing Otago’s awards night in Alexandra.
