It was sunshine and blue skies on Coledale RSL Club's 75th anniversary - a milestone that was unexpected for much of the community who worked tirelessly to revive it.
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"We didn't think we were going to be celebrating 75 years at all," secretary manager Greg Todd said on Saturday.
"We were at a point where the doors had closed. We were in a quandary about how we could make a profit and set it up again."
But now the venue, ran almost entirely by 80 keen volunteers (and one paid employee, operations manager David Lynch), is pumping.
"That's a lot of people when you consider it. We were hoping to get 30 to 40 volunteers to start with, but it's just grown since," Mr Todd said.
The club, which opened in 1948, recently had one of its biggest nights of trade, according to volunteer Donna Brown, as 300 people cheered on the Matildas as they took down France.
"We've never seen so many people in the club. Ever," Mrs Brown, who runs an education supply business and volunteers at the club on weekends, said.
"We were running out of glasses. The atmosphere was absolutely electrifying. It was just incredible."
The beleaguered watering hole called last drinks in December last year due to dwindling finances - the pandemic, severe weather and declining popularity of RSL clubs all to blame.
But that wasn't good enough for those who held the venue close to their hearts. Members stepped in and voted unanimously to sell off half of the club's 12 pokie machines to fund its reopening. Then volunteers got to work.
"We were all really, really upset when the bar closed its doors," Mrs Brown said.
"When the word went out that they were thinking about using volunteers, everyone put their hand up straight away."
A few weeks later, they transformed the club with freshly painted walls, polished floors and brand new beer taps. The doors were thrown back open, just in time for ANZAC Day.
The majority who came forward to revive the club didn't have skills in hospitality, so they organised to get their RSA and RSG qualifications together. Shifts, shared among the young and retired, never go unfilled.
"The system is a well-oiled machine," Mrs Brown said, adding that people pick their shifts from a roster on an app.
"It's such a good model that there's no reason for us to not continue."
The 75th anniversary street party recognised volunteers' efforts by kicking off the day's celebrations with a barbecue.
"Without them (volunteers) we wouldn't have been able to get where we are now," Mr Todd said.
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Grace Crivellaro
Court reporter for the Illawarra Mercury.
Court reporter for the Illawarra Mercury.
