In this post, we share our business updates from March 2025, a month when we were feeling hopeful because of our supportive team and our many new ideas as to how we can make the business more sustainable together. These updates were originally posted on our Facebook page.
March 9th
Business Update #4:
Good weekend to all you fellow bowlers!
It’s time for our weekly business post. This one is going to be a little personal. Recently Jackie found out that a very close friend in America was diagnosed with cancer. Jackie feels that it is really important to be with her, so she’s working on going back to the states for a couple of months.
Jackie and I realised early on that we wanted to build the bowling club to be a lasting mainstay in our local community. Which has come with a huge amount of work, investment, stress, and a large toll on our personal lives. It’s all been worth it. We love the bowling club, so we wouldn’t have chosen any different.
As a part of building up the bowling club, a long term project has been to more or less replace ourselves on the day-to-day running of the business. We feel this is crucial to the sustainability of the project.
Well, now that Jackie needs to leave for a while, we are trying to put some of our plans into action.
It is earlier than we expected. The business hasn’t been built up in a financial way to handle this. As we’ve said, Jackie and I have sacrificed a lot for the sake of the business, and that includes not paying ourselves much at all.
We have plans to make the business thrive in a financial way, these include:
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Expanding delivery meals
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Making sauces bread, condiments etc
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Setting up a charitable trust wing to make our
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Frozen meal program more financially viable
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Having the shop open at other times of the day to cater for breakfast, lunch etc.
But all these things take time, money and can’t be rushed.
So for the meantime, we really need your support by having you all show up as much as you can. If you come to the bowling club for the love of it and have means, paying another dollar or two per meal would also be super-helpful. If you are able to make regular micro donations to our frozen meal program, that would also be a huge help.
We want you to know we really care about running a business that provides love and warmth, and we hope we are here to stay. We hope you can continue to believe in us. Together, I believe we can make this work.
Love,
Liam
March 16th
Business Update #5:
Hi everyone!
We would like to thank you all for a fantastic week. We were feeling down on it last week, and we really felt your love and support this week. We wouldn’t be here without you.
We’re excited about what the future holds, and we are working on some plans for the near future that we would like your help with. We’re working on diversifying the business base, and we feel this means we need to open the shop for more hours to spread out the intensity across the day.
One thing we are thinking about is lunch. There are a couple of ways we are thinking about doing it. The first way would be to serve the same food that is being served the same evening. Meaning we basically have a mini service at lunch, to allow for lunch cravings and for people who can’t come in at the usual hours that were open.
The other way is that we could open a little sandwich shop for lunch. Our star baker Lucy has been working on a great sandwich loaf. We’re thinking we could put some slow cooked meats and veggie fritters in there for simple and delicious sammies. we really enjoyed not making meat offerings for night services. It removes the chances for mistakes to happen during service, and the day runs a lot smoother. By offering meat at lunch, it gives people who want meat an option, that makes more logistical sense for us.
Obviously, roast meat sammies (but not the veggie fritters sammies) would be a lot more expensive than our usual offerings. So we are not sure where the balance lies and what you all think. We would love to hear your feedback. Thank you for helping us guide The Bowling Club together, and have a lovely weekend!
Love,
Liam & Jackie
March 23rd
Business Update #6:
Another wee weekend business update for you:
This week, we felt in awe of our team. Both Liam and I were pretty removed from the day-to-day running of the business. We felt so spoiled as we ate our dinners in the evenings, enjoying the beautiful kai our team made and shared with so many.
So much has changed since we started The Bowling Club nearly 3 years ago. But one thing stays the same: we continue to believe that we will only to succeed if we have a strong team. Currently, there are 20 of us who work here at The Bowling Club. Yes, we all *work* here (we're not volunteers). Everyone brings their own strengths & makes The Bowling Club more vibrant. Everyone is deeply appreciated & loved.
We find one of the most meaningful (and also challenging) parts of the business is managing our team & protecting our team culture. Recently, we've realised that we need to make some changes to The Bowling Club so that the business can continue to stick around and serve people for a long time (we hope). This means changing hours & more clearly defining roles for our teammates. This doesn't necessarily feel good because we can't meet everyone's needs and desires. We can't create ideal jobs for everyone. The reality of running a business (and a reality of life) is that we will let lots of people down.
We're sharing this with you simply because we feel it's important that we're honest with you about what occupies our minds the most when navigating this business. It's always the people, especially our team.
We now understand why some business owners simply refer to their team as "employees" who work "for" them. It's not easy to run a business that tries to understand & prioritise people, creating roles where people can thrive. Most of the time, we feel so confused. We've made a lot of mistakes, and inevitably, we will continue to make mistakes. But for now, we will continue to reflect, to learn, and to lead with love, through all the tough decisions & all the easy breezy days of business too.
<3
Lots of love,
Jackie & Liam
March 30th
Business Update #7:
Kia ora everyone! 🌼
Last week was not great for business in a financial sense. It was pretty slow. And if you’ve been following along, you’ll know that business has been relatively slow for us over the past few months.
Last year around this time, we’d regularly feed 1,000 people each night. Currently, we’re feeding about 600-800 people each night.
That’s still HEAPS of you, which is really cool! The trend just means that we need to change some of our structures around so that the business can stay healthy, and we can stay open!
Recently, Liam and I haven’t been feeling pretty pessimistic about the business. We keep saying, “we’ll give it another year of giving it our all, but if it’s still not working for us, then we’ll have to let it go & move on.”
Over the past couple of months, I was really feeling that maybe we really would let it all go in a year’s time. We love The Bowling Club, but it’s not sustainable for our own energy, well-being or personal lives & we’ve been struggling to find a way to make this work for us (and our team… and the community, of course!).
Last week, I was driving away from work & saw one of our regular free meal customers walking down the street to get his dinner. He comes over everyday we’re open. And for some reason, at that moment, I realised how we really can’t let this place go away. It’s about so much more than sharing kai… it’s about sharing hope, and a sense of home for many people (including ourselves!).
We have some ideas of how we can make the business possibly work in a more sustainable financial way, but for now, I’d like to share some slices of hope from last week with you:
🌼 We changed our dinner hours to 4pm to 7:45pm, which means our serving team can start & finish together which feels really good!
🌼 Our new hours also mean that our whole service team gets to take a shared break at the end of the night. It’s a really connective time to simply be together (which is rare amongst all the hustle & the bustle). We have appointed our dish KING Leroy as our official “smoko manager” (that’s why he’a pictured here… go Leeeerooooy!)
🌼 Liam and I had a very uplifting meeting our accountant & lawyer do discuss possible charitable trust frameworks. Moore Markhams Accounting has taken us on as a client for free, which has been a game-changer for us! AND, Reid Cooper Gray law firm is helping us for free to explore (and possibly) set up a charitable trust. After meeting with our accountant and lawyer, we felt so relieved. Not because we had any answers or clear paths forward, but because we felt so cared for & looked after. Supported is a beautiful way to feel. Thank you, Paula & Charlotte.
🌼 With the help of our builder friend Darren, we’re improving our ‘old bar’ so that it can run as efficiently as possible! We haven’t finished renovating, but we’re excited about the changes & the way this new set-up will help our business. Most weekends Darren comes over to help us with different renovation & building projects. And each weekend, we ask ourselves, “what would we ever do without Darren?” Thank you for always propelling us forward, Darren.
🌼 We’re excited because we’re starting LUNCH service this week! Tuesday to Friday noon to 2pm! We’d love to have you around!
Hope to see all you bowlers around this week!
Lots of love (and peace) (and bowls) (and hope),
Jackie & Liam
☮️🧡🥣