From Last Drinks to Full House: Club Services Ipswich and Elevate Club Management
“In that first 90 days it was just this frantic hive of activity. All of it positive. All of it with the complete conviction that Elevate were doing the right thing. And when you see that things are going where they’re supposed to go, it’s not hard to get enthusiastic and join in.”
– Ian ‘Spike’ Dainer, Board Secretary of CSI Ipswich.
When Elevate stepped in to help the ailing Club Services Ipswich, the Board expected that the initial changes would take two years. Instead, they took just 90 days.
In 2015, Club Services Ipswich (CSI Ipswich) was on the brink:
- 7,000 members
- lost $1,000 per day ($360,000 annually) for two years
No cash, no plan, and a debt burden that looked impossible to climb out of.
Club Services Ipswich is a standalone business established by two of the RSL sub-branches in Ipswich. Its profits don’t line pockets; they fund essential services for veterans and the broader community.
With the Club staring down the barrel of closure, the risk was far bigger than a failed business – in Secretary Ian ‘Spike’ Dainer’s words, ‘the proverbial tsunami of bad news if the club had closed’. Closure would have meant:
- loss of 60 jobs
- local small businesses left unpaid
- Ipswich losing its second-largest hospitality venue
- More than 15 community, school and sporting groups with nowhere to meet.
In that moment of crisis, the Board reached out for help and found Elevate Club Management. Within the first 90 days of signing a lease and a management agreement with Elevate, the Club gained a vision and massive action towards it.
Elevate Club Management brought deep hospitality expertise, research, and wisdom. Within the first three months of Elevate stepping in CSI Ipswich finally had a vision worth fighting for, and the action to make it happen.
Within Elevate Club Management’s first 90 days as Club Management, it:
- ensured financial stabilisation
- reset workplace culture and staff engagement
- brought in a Dynamic new Chef and a new General Manager
- procurement and contract overhauls to ensure commercial viability
- complete cost and margin control reforms
- began stage one of a major renovation
- an application for 110 new gaming authorities
- upgraded the existing gaming room, which had been described as ‘a museum’.
It took four years for CSI Ipswich to make a profit. Every one of those years was spent paying down debt, rebuilding cashflow, restoring trust and putting the business back on solid ground.
Fast-forward to 2026 and CSI Ipswich is almost unrecognisable from the club it once was:
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- a local employer of choice
- employing 80 people, contributing $3.25 million in wages annually
- completely data-driven, with a carded membership system
- growing at a rate of over 4000 new members per year (and has sustained it for 10 years)
- a destination enjoyed by 83,000 members.
- a new multi-million-dollar master development underway.
As Mr Dainer said, ‘We are a vibrant part of the community. All because we have Elevate Club Management.’