Dubbo RSL Memorial Club is going head-to-head with clubs across the state as finalists in four industry awards.
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Dubbo RSL is a finalist in four 2021 Clubs and Community Award categories: COVID-19 Community Assistance, Clubs in Collaboration, Drought Relief and Bushfire Support.
Human resource manager Rebecca Zaia said both the bushfire and drought relief work allowed money to go to communities in need.
About $20,000 was donated to the Rural Financial Counselling Service through their bushfire relief initiative.
Ms Zaia said the club has also partnered with St Vincent de Paul. Vinnies collects all of the club's cans and bottles for Return and Earn, which has helped them to raise more than $8000, while also diverting 316 cubic-metres of rubbish from landfill.
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The COVID assistance award is in relation to the club allowing Laverty Pathology to run their drive-through testing clinic in the car park.
It started off as something that would run for 10 weeks, but because of the high number of people who used the service, it's still running today.
"They said if they didn't have access to this facility they don't even know if they would have been able to run it. That was really good for the club, but also the community more than anything," Ms Zaia said.
Meanwhile, the Clubs in Collaboration accolade is in relation to the RSL taking over Dubbo City Bowling Club.
Ms Zaia said the decision wasn't made based on the money, but a desire to keep lawn bowls going.
"Bowling is a really important thing, particularly for the people who have been going for a long time. That's their outing, that's all they have. We thought to keep that going was really important for the community," she said.
General manager Gus Lico said it was an honour for Dubbo RSL to be a finalist.
"If we get nothing I won't be disappointed. We know what we've done for the our community, everyone else knows what they've done for theirs," he said.
"At the end of the day, it's up to the judges as to who they deem more appropriate for those categories. If we take one or two, great, but we've been up against these clubs before and we've won many awards over the years so if it's somebody else's turn, it's somebody else's turn."
The awards will be held on Thursday night.
Orlander Ruming
Deputy editor at the Daily Liberal, covering council, politics, human interest stories, community news and everything in between.
Deputy editor at the Daily Liberal, covering council, politics, human interest stories, community news and everything in between.
