Clubs and the Canberra community
ACT clubs are a genuine community success story. Since the early days of Canberra the community has used its club structure to provide for the many and diverse social and recreational needs that it has. Now, about 80% of adult Canberrans belong to one or more of our sporting, social, cultural, worker, professional and returned service clubs. In aggregate membership of clubs in the ACT is now almost 420,000.
It would be hard to imagine a Canberra without clubs:
- they augment and enrich the social fabric of our city;
- they offer a safe, controlled and family oriented environment where members are known and recognised and have a sense of belonging; and
- they are proudly mutual organisations established by groups of people sharing a common interest.
As non-profit organisations clubs have a different focus to other enterprises. Their common purpose is to benefit their members and the community. The focus of clubs is on satisfying their "shareholder" - the Canberra community.
Canberra's 75 clubs contributed almost $11 million last year to charitable, sporting and community organisations in Canberra - more than 1,100 community, sporting and other organisations received support from clubs - and the numbers continue to grow.
Clubs maintain very high level of community contributions despite tough trading conditions
