The club, which was proposed in 1945, was the first indoor sporting venue at the Buderim War Memorial Community Centre. Originally, the club was at the rear of the old School of Arts building, and under the hall. A sum of £251 was spent to have timber slats fixed to the posts to form the walls, which were covered with hessian.
Ken Chadwick went to Brisbane with Doug Dickman, another farmer, to collect the first table, which cost £240 – it was a lot of money in those days. In 1947 members’ fees were two shillings and sixpence and a game of billiards cost sixpence. At that time there were 13 members.
Like most organisations, the club had its ups and downs, and if it was going to last, it had to expand. After a lot of haggling with the Community Centre, we won support to build a new extension. In 1966 the club moved to its current location in the front of the hall, between the main room and the library. Since then a bare facility has been improved with two impressive full-sized tables, a kitchen, comfortable seating and a spectacular array of growing honour boards.
A second table was picked up in Woodford and brought to Buderim on the back of a truck and protected by banana bags. There was not much money in the club at this time so some people bought life memberships and others loaned money to the organisation to help set things up.
The games of billiards, snooker and devil pool were played at Buderim well before 1945. At one time the town could boast having at least three billiards rooms. Two were located near the present-day Middy’s complex and the other at Clark’s store, which was opposite the entrance of the current clubroom.
When Vince Crosby was the president he organised for Horace Lindrum to visit the club and give exhibitions. In the 1970s monthly snooker matches began against a team from Kilcoy and the tradition lasted until 1993. The club became incorporated in 1997.
Some of the club’s most prestigious trophies include the Chadwick Shield and the Nev Brockett Memorial Trophy. The Chadwick Shield is named after the founding secretary, who was 17 at the time and occasionally attends club events, and is the prize for the winner of the A Grade tournament. The Nev Brockett Memorial Trophy, which was donated by Nev’s wife Dinah, was first contested in 2003 and is an annual event.