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Cluden Park Executives Hand Over the Reins
Outgoing Cluden Park Committee Executives and General Manager leave no stone unturned as their impressive seven and five-year tenures come to a close.
President of seven years, Malcolm Petrofski, will be stepping down from his position at Cluden Park’s upcoming Annual General Meeting on 23 November opening up the opportunity for another committee person to step into the leadership role – but will stay on the committee in an immediate-past-president role to ensure a smooth transition.
Cluden Park’s Vice President, Ross Donovan, will also step down at the AGM and is likewise to maintain a position on the committee in 2024.
General Manager of five years, Natalie Rintala, will be stepping aside into a new role as Cluden Park’s Chief Financial Officer. The move makes way for an administrative reshuffle as the 150-year-old club is looking to hire their first CEO since 2018.
Since Mrs Rintala’s appointment as General Manager at the beginning of 2019, it has been a show of stability and growth in the wake of the Townsville Floods and COVID-19 Pandemic.
Outgoing President and Committee Member Malcolm Petrofski
In the time since, the site has transformed from solely a horse racing venue to a premier events precinct – now capable of hosting music, food, and comedy festivals, expos, weddings, conferences, and private functions.
Mr Petrofski elaborated,
‘Over the last seven years committee, staff, Ross, and I have worked tirelessly to deliver Townsville and North Queensland a quality entertainment precinct with a great future and a stable financial base to move forward from,’ said outgoing president, Malcolm Petrofski. Race clubs have been forced to change their approach to survive with all major clubs now earning much of their income from non-race day activities. All major capital city clubs now rely on real estate investments and developments of excess land and commercial off racecourse businesses to move forward. Cluden Park is no different. We need to respect our racing history, but this will not ensure survival with club funding from regulatory bodies falling short by over $450,000 per year. This is a large gap to make up with non-racing business.
The other major challenge is with race scheduling and the ability for the community to be part of the atmosphere of racing. The days of Townsville Turf Club racing every Saturday are long gone and so are the crowds that followed. The current program only has 8 opportunities annually for members and patrons to attend outside the normal workday schedule.’
Ms Rintala affirmed Mr Petrofski’s sentiment,
‘It has been a pleasure to serve the Cluden Park, Townsville and wider racing communities, and deliver on several key projects along with the Townsville Turf Club Committee.’ It is now time to refresh, restructure and prepare for the challenges that lay ahead. With dwindling betting turnover, it will be critical to remodel our business to compensate for the losses in the racing component of our business.’
To name but a few achievements, the Petrofski-Rintala combination has delivered on $12 million worth of Members’ and General Admission facility upgrades, built new male and female jockeys’ rooms, tie up stalls and, more recently, began works on a $1.5 million upgrade to the sand training track.
Committee’s search for a new CEO has already begun, hoping to land the right candidate that will continue the momentum and deliver the on-course stabling and excess land development projects already commenced by current committee – all while the Townsville Turf Club celebrates 150-years of operation in 2024. The two major projects will be led by the outgoing Chairman as head of the development subcommittee over the next year. This will allow for continuity on these major developments.
CEO to CFO Natalie Rintala
‘We’ve restructured administration to allow for a CFO and new CEO to work closely together to continue the growth of the business whilst maintaining a high level of governance and financial management practices,’ said Mr Petrofski.
‘We’re really excited to retain Natalie in her new role as CFO, as her wealth of expertise in this area will be highly valuable to our club and organisation in the immediate future.’
‘The committee has been focused on succession planning and there is significant interest from within the committee to fill the President and Vice President positions.’
Committee Member Ross Donovan
‘The club will be left in very good hands, and I look forward to seeing what the future holds under a new executive.’ Ross and I will continue to support the teams in their drive to find the new future for Cluden Park.