General News
5 September, 2023
Changing of the guard
AN A-grade bowler has taken over the running of Edge Hill Memorial Bowls Club in a move to broaden the venue’s customer base.
Nick Twining has been appointed club manager while previous boss Lawrence Green has stepped into an operations role.
Mr Twining is no stranger to the club, having worked as a bar and gaming attendant at the venue in 2009 for two and a half years.
He’s also run the Cairns Bowls Club and had stints at the Raintrees Tavern, the Atherton Hotel and Grafton Hotel at Edmonton as manager as well as managing the Currimundi Hotel on the Sunshine Coast.
The 37-year-old was Bowls Australia’s north Queensland regional bowls manager for a year until returning to the Edge Hill business this year.
The married father of four children wants to see the club grow.
“The place has a really good history and I want to restore a bit of that,” he said.
“I want to make the club the place to be.”
Mr Twining said the venue was drawing a lot of young people. AFL Saints used the Jensen St club after their away games.
He said new caterer Matt Weller and a fresh and diverse menu had almost doubled the dining business.
Mr Twining said barefoot bowls were popular, with groups playing almost every day. “I’ll be looking at extra activities every day, something different for everybody, every day,” he said.
Mr Twining said long term plans were extra poker machines, gaming promotions and opening on Mondays.
Mr Green, who is the new operations manager, said he was taking a step back so he could spend more time with his wife and family.
He said by having two experienced managers they would be able to fill in for each other.
“I can go away without worrying about the place knowing it is in good hands,” Mr Green said.
He said offering different beers on tap was attracting younger audiences as well as monthly musical bingo and supporting Saints AFL, Stingers Hockey, Cairns Vigoro and Edge Hill Ladies Football clubs.
Music on the veranda and prawns and oysters on Sunday afternoons were luring new customers, he said.
