Are Clubs the Last Place Solving Loneliness?

TRANSCRIPT: Are Clubs the Last Place Solving Loneliness?

The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast

---

 Michelle Pascoe: Welcome everyone to today's podcast. Today we are travelling across the ditch to our beautiful cousins in New Zealand. I have the honour and privilege of having a guest today that I've known through the industry for many years but have never had the opportunity to connect face to face. Lucy Waterreus is the Chief Executive of Clubs New Zealand and has spent most of her career working alongside clubs at every level, from behind the bar to the boardroom. She's deeply passionate about the role clubs play in New Zealand communities, and works closely with clubs to understand their challenges, support their governance and operations, and is an advocate for the sector with government and regulators. Lucy is practical, people-focused and family-minded, and believes strong clubs mean stronger communities. Thank you so much for joining me, Lucy.

Lucy Waterreus: It's lovely to be having this conversation with you. Thank you, it's so great to be here.

Michelle Pascoe: Bios are wonderful, they always give us a little bit of an overview, but you've been in the industry for a number of years, and even though New Zealand and Australia are very close and our clubs are similar, New Zealand has different regulations and different ways they connect with their communities, and why they're there. I really want to get into that, because that connection with communities is key to the heart of every club, and it's also creating an awareness that this is a wonderful industry to be in. So, you got in there and started on the ground, worked through, and here you are now CEO and in the boardroom. From those points, what have clubs actually needed that you couldn't have learned just from a policy document or at a boardroom table?

Lucy Waterreus: When I reflect on my time in clubs, I started out nearly twenty years ago working in clubs, as a fresh faced glassy, and then worked through behind the bar. The first thing that comes to mind, without a doubt, is the people.

Michelle Pascoe: Yes, that is at the heart of what clubs are.

Lucy Waterreus: I think it's about understanding the needs of the members, having the perspective of what those frontline staff are needing, but also being able to connect with the management and the governance as well.

Michelle Pascoe: Yeah, it's getting those connections.

Lucy Waterreus: My fondest memories of even working in the clubs are the three guys that would come in every Sunday at 2:00 on the dot, just there to catch up and connect with peers. It's the volunteers that are there week on week supporting the club, that people element you can't learn from policy documents and paper.

Michelle Pascoe: It's so true. And I think every club has got a table of knowledge, and that's what those three men are.

Lucy Waterreus: Ha ha, yeah.

Michelle Pascoe: Clubs are there, it's about that feeling of connection, and now more than ever we need that connection. I was looking at some research the other day that said the loneliest generation globally is Gen Z, which is quite something, because you think, well, here they are, highly connected. But they're connected on these things. And they don't have that opportunity to meet in person, so getting them back into clubs, getting them to see there's a place for them and their friends to grow, but also to meet other generations. I think there's a lot of myths, and I'm sure you've found it too, Lucy, over the years. Baby boomers are like this, Gen Z's and Gen Y's are like that, and then when they actually get to work together or have a conversation, those myths and walls come down, and those assumptions about each other. But we've got to get them in the room, that old fashioned water cooler conversation.

Lucy Waterreus: There are some articles coming out in New Zealand at the moment around the social fabric, and how it's almost in the worst situation it's been in for a long time. I think clubs have a really important role in building that back up, through those face to face interactions.

Michelle Pascoe: Yes. But it's not just Gen Z, because they're on the screen, I think it's everyone. Last week I went to an event, I'm down in the Southern Highlands, I've been living there now for six years, and I got talking to a woman there and found out she's two doors up from me. I'd never seen her in six years, and she doesn't even know the neighbour who's been at the front of my street for twenty years, because we're all so busy now. It's that end of the baby boomers, the Gen X that are work, work, work, and even that group, all generations, need that opportunity to get together and just feel like they belong to something. There was some American research I found yesterday about Gen Alphas, the ones finishing school at the end of 2024. We all think they shop online, it's practically wired into them, but in America they're going back to the shopping malls, because that's where they can go and catch up with friends.

 So the clubs are so important. But of course then we have them coming in as employees, and we'll talk about that a little later, but then how do they start these conversations when they're not used to having one? And then of course there's the ones you can't ever stop talking.

 So getting the balance right with those different personality types, it's a lot of fun, engaging with our members who also have different personalities. So look, there's a narrative out there that clubs are just places people go for entertainment. What does that miss, and what do you want people to understand about the real role clubs play in New Zealand communities?

Lucy Waterreus: Clubs are hospitality venues, they have food, drink, entertainment, but the biggest thing I'd like people to understand is that's just the surface level stuff. They are community assets, places of belonging where people can go and find connection and purpose in their lives. In New Zealand especially, I'm not sure if it's the same in Australia, the club is often the last space left for people to get together, particularly in our rural communities.

So it's really driving home that side of clubs, the work they do to support the wider community. While they are a member based association, the work they do filters out far further than the walls of the club, which is important, because it's bringing people in who don't normally go to a club.

Michelle Pascoe: Let's talk a bit more about how they stretch out into the broader community. What are you doing in New Zealand in particular that's really building this community connection?

Lucy Waterreus: At a national level, we've launched within the last year or two what we're calling our Club Connect programme, which is focused around mental health and wellbeing. We've partnered with people working particularly in the rural mental health space, and we're going around the country helping clubs deliver workshops and opportunities for people to come together and learn more about the importance of mental health and wellbeing, and really trying to break down some of the stigma associated with it, because when you've got older generations especially, there's a lot of stigma around that mental health and wellness piece.

At an individual level too, we see clubs with more local associations and groups they support. We've had a couple of clubs recently do really exciting fundraiser days where the staff are all involved, I think they got the idea from an Australian club they'd visited, where staff members are in teams riding exercise bikes in the club.

Michelle Pascoe: With the bikes, yes! So the team that covers the most distance wins the fundraising. Club Taree, with CEO Paul Allen, introduced that, and it was phenomenal, it started a healthy competition, you'd see the manager or the bar person, someone from gaming who'd already done an eight hour shift, still getting on their bike because they didn't want their record to go. It was about raising money for people who truly needed it, keeping it within the community as well as helping nationally, and it pulled in members who might have just been sitting there for a meal.

Lucy Waterreus: We're seeing more of those sorts of activities, some clubs have a community partner for the year, and all their fundraising activity goes towards that partner, and the results and engagement they get is really meaningful.

Michelle Pascoe: Do you also do some work with schools over there, Lucy?

Lucy Waterreus: Yes, a lot of clubs have partnerships with various schools, quite often linked to sports, getting students in and pairing them with people in the club who can help with sports activities, or supporting sports teams within the schools. It's that grassroots piece, showing that clubs are there for that entertainment element, and the children still come in for meals as well, but it's that connection back, showing the children that clubs are there for the community, and the money that comes in goes back around to the community.

Michelle Pascoe: You made that point about regional areas, particularly for mental health, having those programmes. I know your clubs will be the same as ours, particularly in regional areas, when there's a disaster, whether it's flood or fire, that's the hub everybody goes to. It's where the emergency services rally around, but it's also where people can sleep, often on the highest part of town. In that mental health space especially, for regional areas where people don't get the medical support they do in the city, it's having that opportunity to have the discussion.

And you're right, a lot of the older generation, there's still that stigma. We've talked about it openly for so long, but even with younger people there's still that stigma or shame or embarrassment, when it shouldn't be. So at least going to them gives them the opportunity to actually have that conversation, a safe place to connect and open up if there are things challenging them.

Lucy Waterreus: In New Zealand we've certainly seen our fair share of weather related disasters recently, and the clubs really rally for the communities.

Michelle Pascoe: So we do the community work, but of course then there's all the governance and regulation. You work closely with clubs on governance and operations, where do you most commonly see clubs come unstuck, and what's the fix that makes the biggest difference, and the fastest?

Lucy Waterreus: This isn't a blanket case for every club, but the most common issue is that blurring of the lines between governance and management. In New Zealand, particularly in smaller, more rural clubs, boards often have to step in and fill operational gaps, and that can really blur those lines, and the club loses its strategic focus. When you have those blurred lines, managers often feel they lose their empowerment, decisions slow down, it's a snowballing effect, and that's really where progress stalls. What's happened recently in New Zealand is our clubs, which are registered as incorporated societies, just had a new act come into play, the Incorporated Societies Act 2022, replacing the 1908 act. As you can imagine, that old act was quite light on guidance for a modern club. This new legislation really increases the responsibilities on our executives, so we've really focused at Clubs New Zealand on supporting clubs through the transition, getting training in place for our executives, and helping them understand where those lines sit. There used to be this line used in New Zealand all the time, that it's governance versus management, but that's not what it is, we're really trying to change the narrative that you're working in partnership, for the betterment of your clubs and your members and your community, but it's the boards needing to understand the responsibilities and accountability they have, because it's a big thing to take on a position on a board.

Michelle Pascoe: How are you seeing that in New Zealand? Because here we've had a similar group of people, without stereotyping them, who've been our board members for many years, but for many of them now they're really retiring and leaving for all sorts of reasons. What we're starting to see here is some boards were as large as fifteen and are now down to maybe seven, because it's about getting the quality you're looking for. If they need somebody with a financial background, that's who they go out seeking, instead of in the past where it's been good hearted volunteers stepping up. What does that look like in New Zealand?

Lucy Waterreus: In New Zealand we're still very much in that good hearted volunteers space. The way our executives are formed is that they're voted in by the membership, generally people putting their hands up when it comes time for the election. There's still a lot of those good hearted volunteers, and there's definitely fatigue out there, they're tired and probably seeking to step back and be able to actually enjoy their clubs as members, rather than sitting in that seat of responsibility. But there are clubs actively looking at how they diversify their boards, and there's been a conscious effort to reduce board size in some cases, though there's also been a bit of a move to shrink boards right down, and I think that's the danger, you lose the ability to diversify and attract the skills you need. So it's about getting that balance right. It's a lot of work for those good hearted volunteers to take on that responsibility, but without them clubs wouldn't exist, we need the volunteers.

Michelle Pascoe: Exactly, and it's getting that balance, because as I said, a lot of the fatigue comes from wanting to come in and enjoy their club, but they walk in the door and it's like they've got a neon sign across their forehead, and everyone comes to them with their problems about what's happening in the club.

So it's creating boundaries as well, so they can take their governance hat off and enjoy their club, and not hear about the discoloured lettuce in the egg sandwich or the hand dryer in the third cubicle.

So look, we've talked about our boards and governance, but let's look at our frontline and management, the teams that welcome us through the door, provide our food and beverages, make sure we're safe. Recruitment and retention has been a notorious pain point across hospitality globally for decades. How are New Zealand clubs going about attracting staff, and then getting it right to actually hold on to them?

Lucy Waterreus: I look at my own journey, I'm probably one of those slightly unique people who fell into clubs and hospitality thinking it would be the thing that tided me over while I was at university, and here I am many years later still very much in it. I think a lot of our clubs are probably still quite traditional in their approach to recruitment and retention. You've obviously got the challenges that come with a cost of living crisis, running a club is incredibly challenging, so getting the balance right is really hard. But where we're seeing clubs succeeding is where they're really putting their focus into their culture and their people, it's almost a strategic decision by the executive that flows down into management and staffing. The clubs that are really investing in their people through training and opportunities, and building those career pathways, that's incredibly important to retaining staff.

Michelle Pascoe: It is, because we lost so many, particularly that middle management group, a few years back, and so now it's about clubs looking at succession planning, showing people there's the opportunity for an amazing career path in hospitality. You know, you might start, as you said, Lucy...

Lucy Waterreus: Picking up glasses.

Michelle Pascoe: It was funny, I said to somebody the other day in one of my frontline trainings, "are you a glassy?" and they went, "a what?" I said, you know, the person who picks up the glasses.

Ha ha, oh okay, so we don't call them glassies anymore, that's very old fashioned, Michelle.

But it's just showing that here you were, picking up glasses, and now you're CEO, and you just love this industry, and it's developed so much. But it's going to move quicker, nobody is going to wait around, Gen Z in particular, for someone to retire in thirty years, or just because you've been here eleven years you're going to be the next duty manager. It's going to be a lot quicker, and done on merit, not just tenure.

Lucy Waterreus: Absolutely, we're lucky in clubs in New Zealand to have staff and management who've put in considerable service to their club, but it's also about building those pathways to bring new people through as well.

Michelle Pascoe: Having those ones that have been in the industry a long time, because we're looking at this over the next five years, we're going to see a number of retirements from amazing CEOs who've shown that pathway to those who'll be succeeding, right down to the duty manager, the supervisors, the front line teams. Because when they leave, we're taking a lot of knowledge and wisdom we don't want to lose, so if they've shared that with their team, to me that's continuing their legacy, which is wonderful.

Lucy Waterreus: Yes, it's just getting them to do it. In New Zealand clubs, we tend to have the general manager wearing the hat of CEO, chief marketing officer and chief finance officer, all at once, and when you're that busy, passing that knowledge on becomes incredibly difficult.

Michelle Pascoe: It does, they don't have the time, but it's all the things impacting our lives, as well as thinking about that next group and succession planning.

Because today we've got four generations under one roof, and even some venues have five, the Alphas, even though they're not over eighteen, are working in the bistros, out the back.

Lucy Waterreus: Some of our smaller clubs have even recruited them as young as fourteen, through a great programme with their schools, and also with their parents and guardians, particularly in small villages, using the courtesy bus to pick them up and take them home. They make sure their school exams and reports are still good, but what it's doing is nurturing that group, they become part of the culture, they see what the values are.

Michelle Pascoe: And those values, when you're talking about the culture of the organisation, are absolutely key, and having them as part of the vision. So with all these generations, how does that dynamic play out in actual practice, because it's very easy for us to say "oh, they just get on so beautifully," but what does it mean for how clubs develop their people and plan for who leads the organisations into the future?

Lucy Waterreus: That's a really interesting one, and probably an area we're grappling with in New Zealand at the moment. It's that friction between "this is the way we've always done it" and "this is the way we could do it." You've got people who've been working in the industry a long time, quite set in their ways of how a club should operate, and then you've got these young generations coming in who are tech savvy, glued to their phones, with a different view of the world. It's that mixing of minds, there's been a lot of work that's had to go into understanding people, different ideas, different values.

One of the areas I get so excited about in clubs is that we are so diverse, and for me personally, I love going into a club and having a yarn with an older member who can tell me all the history of the club, through to, we were at an event recently and there was a young guy, must have been in his twenties, dancing with darling grandma up on the dance floor, and for me that's the stuff that makes me really happy, seeing those interactions.

It's also what you were saying about the value of learning, the opportunities to learn the values, and when we look out in the world and see that social fabric under pressure, the cohesion not being there at the moment, I think there's such an opportunity for young people going into clubs and learning from their elders about how the world works, about respect, and being able to appreciate different viewpoints.

Michelle Pascoe: Yes, and to be tolerant. We talk about our patrons not being as tolerant as they once were, well that's the same with the staff, and it's not saying it in a bad way, I always see clubs as an extension of our patrons' living room. It's those providing the amazing service that, for many of our patrons, feels like family, whether that's through choice or distance. So having somebody who's an Alpha or Gen Z being able to have those conversations, or having a dance with someone who's perhaps a veteran, gives them the opportunity to break down those barriers and learn from each other, those little things we once took for granted, because it's a different world now, everybody's used to pressing a button and having it delivered, or asking their phone and getting the answer without actually looking it up.

I had my grandchildren, who are ten and thirteen, over for the Easter holidays, and I got them this book, a thousand amazing questions to ask, and I said, "what question would you like to ask, like why is the sun hot?" and they just went straight to their phones. I said no, you've got to turn the pages. I love that book, I think it's fantastic, all these questions I've always wondered about, but maybe the book, for this generation, is them telling the stories.

Lucy Waterreus: Yeah, absolutely, and that's what makes the difference.

Michelle Pascoe: So before we wrap up, one or two last questions on the industry's landscape. What do you believe are the biggest pressures clubs will face over the next five years, what will a genuinely thriving club look like, and what has to happen between now and then to get there?

Lucy Waterreus: The biggest pressure by far for our New Zealand clubs is regulatory burden. Like Australia, we're incredibly regulated, largely around the sale and supply of alcohol, and gaming. In New Zealand, our clubs can only sell and supply alcohol to existing members, their guests, and members from another club, so if I'm not a member I can't just walk in and have a drink and a meal, there are hoops to jump through to get in the door, and that creates major challenges for clubs being able to diversify. The other area where we differ quite a lot from Australia is our class four gaming, a club in New Zealand can have a maximum of eighteen gaming machines, with sinking lid policies and a whole lot of compliance requirements. On the horizon, we've just got online casino gaming laws coming into effect very soon, which is going to really challenge our land based gaming operations and put a lot of pressure on our clubs, so we've got to watch that carefully. We've been advocating quite strongly with the government to make some changes to the alcohol laws for clubs, to give them some options in how they operate. But it's also at a club level, it's the clubs engaging with the community, getting outside of "we're a club that has a bar and a restaurant," that are looking at things differently, they're the ones thriving and challenging the traditional view of what a club is. The ones just content to sit and do what they've always done are unfortunately struggling in today's environment.

Michelle Pascoe: We see the same thing here. On the alcohol point, do those same rules apply to pubs, or is it just clubs?

Lucy Waterreus: Just clubs, pubs have what we call an "on licence" in New Zealand, so they can serve the general public.

Michelle Pascoe: Right, because we have the same difference here between clubs and pubs. Getting back to our very first reason for this conversation, it's about communities, and when a person comes to a club, their welfare is in the mind of every staff member, and that's what I love about clubs. We ensure, whether it's restrictions like your eighteen machines, or ours which are very different here in Australia, our teams ensure the best welfare for our patrons. Online gambling takes that away, there is no welfare, and I know a lot of it's been going on illegally, so maybe making it more legal will make a difference, but it always concerns me, we've had different regulations go through recently about online betting during football matches, because children are watching it. But it's not even children to me, it's all of us, you go there and it's like every second ad, and everybody needs to make a dollar, we're all in business, but that's very different to what our clubs offer, which is security, welfare, entertainment. Sure there's gaming, but there's food, you can sit in a club all day and have a glass of water and nobody will ask you to move, that's the difference.

Lucy Waterreus: Yeah, it's a safe space, the staff get to know the members quite closely, even in really big clubs, it's almost like you've always got someone looking out for you.

Michelle Pascoe: Yes, and to me that's the key. I know whether they're playing bingo or whatever, if somebody's missing, it's like "oh, that guy's not here." When I do my training I always hear the young ones say, "who's that chap that comes in on a Thursday at 5:00, haven't seen him for a while," and someone says, "oh yeah, he's on holidays," or "he had to go in for an operation," and they know it. These are young kids, and you'd think they don't even know his name, but they know he's the guy that always sits in that seat. That's the connection, that feeling of belonging. The clubs are there for the community, and that's what we need to keep instilling into people, to work in the industry but also to support the clubs.

So before we finish, because I know I could chat with you all day, Lucy, this has been absolutely wonderful. Please share how our audience can connect with you, and give us a little overview of the difference between the clubs in the North and South Islands too, I was amazed by the different sizes.

Lucy Waterreus: We've got clubs with fifteen members that get together once a week, and that's what makes them a club, and then our largest clubs are up over ten thousand members, which is really exciting. Between the North and South Island we're probably split about sixty-forty, sixty percent of our members in the north and forty percent in the South Island. I guess it's a silver lining of the earthquake in Christchurch a number of years ago, that we've got some quite impressive clubs that were able to rebuild following that time, so we've got some really special clubs in the South Island, and some amazing ones dotted around the north as well. For anyone visiting New Zealand, I definitely recommend getting out to some of our more rural clubs and seeing what they're doing.

Michelle Pascoe: It's a lot of fun, when I was training over there a number of years ago I was amazed, you walk into the club and there are all these beer glasses set up with little name tags, they just go in and that's their glass. Does that still happen since Covid?

Lucy Waterreus: It still happens in some clubs, they've got their handle clubs, and their particular glasses are ready and waiting in the fridges for when they arrive.

Michelle Pascoe: It's just so cute.

Lucy Waterreus: There are some challenges with members who are very familiar with that setup, but as a new person walking in you can be a bit like "what is this," so as long as the staff are there to help people out and let them know what the go is. Each club has got its own little quirks and uniqueness which make them really special.

Michelle Pascoe: It does, it certainly does. And I'm sorry, you haven't shared how people can connect with you. For a number of years, and some clubs still do it, we've had different conferences in both countries, and some staff coming from smaller New Zealand clubs to Australia's larger clubs, and some of them going back into a smaller club, that's a real eye opener. So how could they connect with you?

Lucy Waterreus: I'm on LinkedIn, but otherwise the best way to get in touch with us is to visit our website, ClubsNZ.org.nz, we've got a lot of information about what we do there, but you can also get in touch with us directly.

Michelle Pascoe: Wonderful, well look, I'll put all those links in the show notes, but thank you so much once again, Lucy, it's been a wonderful conversation, and I've certainly enjoyed it today.

Lucy Waterreus: I appreciate it, thank you.

---

END TRANSCRIPT