Members of Legacy, Peter Sheather and Terry Roach, pictured with the Rum Cup Diggers’ Trophy which has run since 1954. They are extremely disappointed that someone saw fit to jeopardise the bowls event that raises thousands of dollars for this worthy cause.
Organisers determined to retain Legacy event
Narrandera Bowling Club’s annual Rum Cup charity bowls event has been the subject of a complaint to Liquor and Gaming NSW.
Despite an official of the NSW body denying record of such a complaint the Club’s executive confirmed that the complaint had been lodged and they were in fact phoned by a compliance officer from Liquor and Gaming NSW regarding the event.
Rum Cup bowls has been held at the club since 1954. It is an annual charity bowls day to fund raise for Legacy, a charity which helps the families of ADF veterans who have died or ended up in bad health due to their military service. During the period immediately after World War II, the Rum Cup was well supported, raising thousands of dollars every year for charity.
“Rum Cup has all the little details that ex-servicemen and women would appreciate – pea and ham soup, ANZAC biscuits, rum rations and a remembrance service at 11am,” said the club’s secretary-manager Les Caldarevic. “We generally raise more than $1000 per year for this great cause.”
Mr Caldarevic said it was the first complaint of this type – where someone has complained about alcohol and sport – that the club had been subjected to.
“It takes only one person to lodge a complaint to Liquor & Gaming, which don’t reveal who the complainant is for privacy reasons. We received a phone call from a Liquor & Gaming compliance officer who verbally went through the complaint without offering the actual wording of the letter they received.
“I explained the details about Rum Cup. Things such as the $25 entry fee includes a voucher for seven half nips of rum – which after all is barely more than two schooners of full strength beer – not anything you’d get rolling drunk on. I think they were expecting Rum Cup to be an ‘all you can drink’ event with no responsible service of alcohol,” Mr Caldarevic said.
He said this whole saga had been quite inconvenient.
“Personally, I’ve lost several days of work trying to deal with this. That includes having to prepare statutory declarations with the facts of the matter. I don’t blame Liquor & Gaming for following up on complaints, but I’m hoping that they find there wasn’t too much to complain about,” he said.
Mr Caldarevic said the club would definitely be running Rum Cup next year on the first Saturday in July as per usual.
“There might be some minor changes to address any issues that Liquor & Gaming might have. But I can’t imagine Liquor & Gaming wanting to kill off a charity bowls day over this one complaint.”
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