The auditorium... looks in perfect nic. I think they've still even got the frosted glass DJ booth with the last incarnation of the niteclub's name on it (Huuuj?).
Obviously it should be used more often. Here's some possibilities:
f**king after match functions for fans and players after every f**king home game - it's not that hard LC Directors, you bunch of clowns! Open the bar in the auditorium and make some money to cover any cost (of which there is probably none). Twelve a year, simple.
Gigs. And I don't mean f**king Jade Hurley or equivalent once a month. I remember seeing Midnight Oil play in the auditorium about ten years ago. It was toward the end of their career/popularity, but it was a great venue for a gig. Offer gigs by known bands every fortnight, get involved in the entertainment booking circuits, promote the venue to bands and punters. Open the bar, make some money. The Roxy is now a gig venue I understand, so why can't Parra Leagues be the same (again)? 26 times a year, pick whichever day/night suits as a regular night for gigs and stick to it.
Niteclub. Not really my thing, but it's been successfully done before at Parra Leagues, so why not again? Friday or Saturday night, every week. Promote, build the audience, make some money. I remember in the days of Kicks and Eelectriques, the queue to get in used to go all teh way along the side of the club in (?) Fennel Street. Panthers club operates successful night club nights, and I believe the Roxy is essentially that too now? 52 times a year, no reason why we can't do it.
(Imperative in this idea is that the Club and the League tell Ch 9 to get f**ked when it schedules club games only 5 weeks in advance and on all sorts of timeslots that might create a venue booking clash. We should follow the English model where clubs nominate their preferred home game day and kick-off time, and the games are allocated on that basis, with only one or two changes close to the semis if TV needs to show a game that isn't a dead rubber in it's two prime slots.)
Sterlos. I think it is or used to be called a Sports Bar? So f**king turn it into one and attract patrons back. When I think Sports Bar I think of a pub with multiple big screens, a bit of a buzz to it with posters on the wall about coming televised matches (of any sports), a basic pub kitchen for meals while you are sat there. It's not rocket science! Build it (and promote it) and the people will come.
The hall of honour (not 3rd floor). Needs to be more prominantly displayed in the club, not on the 3rd floor, and not at the back of Sterlos either. The reason given for why it was moved from its central location on the lower floors was that it was getting too big to fit. Pity then that they just stuck up a TV screen basically showing a DVD on rotation in the new location... they could have done that in it's existing location, but they fed the members lies. Move some of the pokies form the front entranceway and make everyone walk through the f**king thing every time they come in, so they remember who they have to thank that they can be in the place to play their blessed pokies.
Access to the 3rd floor. I think we can all agree that the club has very bad access to the 3rd floor - and always has. That shouldn't be an excuse to not have the 3rd floor operating - it should be a challenge that is a priority in any club expansion. But under the advise of the blinkered pokies-for-profit crew, that priority has basically taken over the whole club. They expand pokies rooms, build f**king special sections for pokie players who smoke etc. When they should have used the space on the carpark side to build a three floor escalator to get patrons up and away quick and effectively. Then they could have let the pokies players run riot on the other two floors, and we never would have heard a thing about the football focus taking a back seat when there's a conflict.
Parking. I reckon the argument that pokie players don't come on game days can be put down to the parking situation. Again it is not a reason not to have after match functions - after all, if match days are the lowest days for pokies takings, then the people already aren't there, so the Club may as well make some money out of the footy fans.
Instead of building on the real estate that is sitting unused on the opposite corner, Parra should have done like Wests (Ashfield) did and build some decent carparking. So potential patrons (pokies or footy fans) know that they don't have to worry about whether it's a game day or not in terms of us all being able to use our club together.
The above is nothing that hasn't been said 100 times before by 100 different people. It's not rocket science, and you don't have to do anything wacky that hasn't been tried before. The more I think about the coming LC elections and issues like this about how the club has moved so far from its remit and yet has nothing to show for it but doom and gloom predictions, the more I think the incumbents (except for maybe Gethro who is a recent addition) deserve a hiding in the coming LC vote.