Page:1930 QLD Royal Commission into Racing Report.djvu/51

 They set out a resolution that candidates for membership are to be proposed at one meeting and elected at the subsequent meeting.

They do not show how the committee is appointed or elected, or what has been its number. There is at present a committee of nine members which appears to have control of the ordinary business of the club.

The entrance fee for members is £10 10s. and the annual subscription is £1 1s.

In former years, particularly during the war, the club appears to have been prosperous, though its membership never exceeded seventy.

During war years, it contributed all the profits of its meetings, amounting to very considerable sums, to patriotic purposes. In later years, it also held meetings for charitable and other public purposes. The prize money at some of these meetings reached £250.

For a number of years it operated quite independently of unregistered racing in Brisbane, and, during this period, contributed to the improvement of Bundamba Racecourse.

Of late, the membership has declined, until it now stands at two life members and seven financial members.

In former days various members of committee acted as judge, stewards, and other officials at race meetings, in an honorary capacity. At present about six members of the committee fill these positions, being paid varying sums for their services at each meeting. In recent years the club has also come more or less, under the influence of associated unregistered bodies in Brisbane. It is represented on the Associated Appeal Board, which has assigned it one meeting a month.

These meetings are generally held on Thursdays, and are of the usual unregistered type—six divisional events.

Admission to the Paddock is 6s. and to the Leger 2s.

The public of Ipswich do not at present attend the meetings in any number, the patrons being mostly drawn from Brisbane, and consisting largely of those persons who attend unregistered racing in Brisbane.

From a consideration of the gate money paid, it appears that the average attendance in recent years has been in the vicinity of four hundred.

There has been a loss on operations during the last five years.

The committee's report, presented to the Annual Meeting in July, 1929, shows that the club made a loss of £104 in 1928 and about £56 in 1929

These losses have been defrayed out of profits previously accumulated. The accumulated fund on 31st July, 1929, amounted to £1,330.

No books of account appear to have been kept, but statements of the results of recent meetings and of the application of the moneys received 7 there from are entered in, the minute book.

It is to be regretted that the operations of this long-established General bona fide club appear to have been crippled by the extension of the activities of proprietary unregistered racing in Brisbane.