Muswellbrook Shire Council is contributing $650,000 and the developer is providing just over $1 million for the project.

Workers’ Club General Manager, Scott Bailey, says the old Club auditorium, which dates back to 1962, was originally a cinema.

“It had really old air conditioning, a big dance floor in the middle, old carpeting, old furnishings and was going to cost a lot of money to renovate and turn it into something that would be palatable for the 21st Century.

“We hit upon the idea after consultation with Mayor Martin Rush that there was a grant available from the Council for anybody who helped bring a cinema to the town,” he said.

Scott Bailey says he understands the grant has been in the Budget of the Muswellbrook Shire Council for over 10 years.

“So a local entrepreneur, Michael Rinkin, who owns the Nissan dealership in town, took that ball and ran with it and he applied for the grant.

“We signed a Memorandum of Understanding between himself and the Club and that gave him the opportunity to build and open a cinema and we’ve signed a licence to construct with him and we hope we’ll be showing first-release films in time for the school holidays,” Mr Bailey said.

There will be two 122-seat cinemas, with facilities for disabled access, 3D projectors, full surround sound and one of the cinemas will have an audio-induction loop for the hearing impaired.

Mr Bailey says the cinemas, when completed, won’t just serve the township of Muswellbrook, but will be utilised by people living in Singleton, Aberdeen, Denman, Scone, Merriwa and elsewhere in the district.

Mr Bailey says Club members won’t be impacted by the changes, with all maintenance costs borne by the cinema operator and the Club receiving a rental return as well.

“There will be a couple of little structural changes that will come about due to licensing, so we’ll be de-licensing the Club foyer to allow children to enter without being in the immediate presence of an adult.

“It will also require the construction of a new door entrance into the Bar and Gaming section of our Club and that will probably be the only expense,” Mr Bailey said.

Muswellbrook Mayor Martin Rush has also welcomed the commencement of works.

“The partnership between Council, the Workers’ Club and the developer, Michael Rinkin is a great example of local government and industry working together to provide better services for our community.

“The cinema project is scheduled for completion in December and it is hoped movies will be screening in time for this year’s Christmas school holidays,” Mayor Rush said.

Cinema developer Michael Rinkin says he’s very pleased to be involved in the cinema project.

“There’s 390 A-Grade cinemas [not including boutique cinemas] in Australia and only 41 don’t have alcohol in them and that’s an amazing statistic that I nearly fell over with.

“Muswellbrook’s got a reasonably sensible population, our crime rate’s low, the Club’s never had any major issues and we’ve also got bar hours that are restricted.

“The whole point of this is to create a cinema where people can come and have a family experience, enjoy a meal and our statistics tell us between 55,000 and 75,000 people a year will buy tickets and I think that’s pretty good,” Mr Rinkin said.