THE Broken Hill Musicians Club has taken out the award for Emergency Services at the Clubs and Community Awards NSW last week in Sydney, recognizing their service to Broken Hill during last year’s electricity outages.
Club owner Michael Boland said this year saw a record number of finalists which made the win even sweeter.
“It shows how much clubs do in the community,” he said.
During the October outages the club opened the doors to the community to come and be cool in the air conditioning, as well as providing free coffee and tea and water and discounted meals.
At peak times, Mr Boland estimates about 800 people utilised the space.
“At peak we had 800 people in the club, and outside of that there was always between 200-300 people,” he said.
As well as offering a respite centre for Broken Hill residents, the club provided support to outlying communities like Wilcannia and Menindee.
“We helped them source diesel and got water up to Wilcannia because they had issues with their pump,” Mr Boland said.
“It was a whole club effort.”
