Club Taree CEO to Inspire Colleagues Across the Ditch

Ten years ago, Paul created the Club Taree Community Team — an engagement outlet for Club Taree staff to make a positive impact on their local community.

The team celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2024 by reaching a milestone of $1 million raised since its inception, while also contributing over 12,000 hours of volunteer labour to the Manning Valley community.

“I wanted something that was going to create a connection to members and the community; something authentic that which made a positive impact through the power of people,” says Paul.

“I saw it as an outlet for staff, managers and directors to connect to the community.”

In 2015, Paul established Le Tour de Taree, a fundraising initiative aimed at mirroring Le Tour de France in distance and time, by utilising the Club Taree Community Team.

Over the past decade, the Club Taree Community Team has ridden more than 67,000 kilometres and volunteered almost 5000 hours to pedal and raise funds for Ronald McDonald House Charities Northern NSW.

Last year the initiative raised a whopping $191,013 for the charity which cares for families with children who are ill or injured, bringing the 10-year total raised to $597,205.

“The team came up with the connection to Ronald McDonald House and I came up with the challenge of a bike ride. Ten years and $600,000 later I’m beyond proud of what we’ve done,” says Paul.

Now, it’s hoped that clubs across the ditch can harness the community efforts of Club Taree by having Paul speak at their conference and inspire their managers.

“The President of Clubs New Zealand reached out to me two years ago while putting together a tour of New South Wales,” says Paul.

“They did a site inspection, but they were most interested in our community piece once they started hearing about that.

“We hosted 48 New Zealand club managers at Club Taree and told them all about what we do with the community and that led to the invitation to share it with everyone in New Zealand.”

Paul will be one of the keynote speakers when the Clubs New Zealand 2025 Conference gets underway from this Friday, 21 March.

On his return to Australia, he has his sights firmly on the Club’s next community endeavour, which promises to be the biggest initiative yet.

“We wrapped up Le Tour de Taree last year on a ten-year high. Now we have the Club Taree Community Challenge, where we will combine all of our favourite elements of what we’ve done across ten years into one annual event,” he says.

“We’ll be raising funds for three different organisations which will change each year. We’ll create awareness for these organisations, new touchpoints in the community and engage the team in the project which connects them as a team and builds the power of team.”