Caroline Searcy has been unanimously elected to lead the Carbine Club of NSW – the first woman to hold the position of Chairperson in the Club’s 44-year history, and the first woman to lead any of the organisation’s 15 Clubs around the world.
Ms Searcy was voted in at the Club’s Annual General Meeting and succeeds Bernie Campbell who led the Club successfully for three years, guiding it most recently through the COVID era.
In a 20-year association with the Carbine Club of NSW, Caroline began attending functions as a guest while working as the senior news presenter and producer at Fox Sports News and has since hosted a variety of sporting functions for the club over two decades.
Caroline has been a Carbine Club member for eight years and deputy chair since 2018 having worked in sports media for over 30 years around Australia, based in Sydney for the past 26 years.
After a decade as the live TV host of Saturday race-days in Sydney for horseracing channel TVN currently Caroline hosts and produces two programs for Sky Racing through her company Searcymedia, Bred To Win and the thoroughbred re-homing program, Thoroughbreds Are Go.
Caroline is also on the Committee of Thoroughbred Breeders’ NSW and a judge in the Australian Stud And Stable Staff Awards.
The Carbine Club of NSW is a not-for-profit organisation whose primary aims are to raise money for junior sport through an elite membership of past and present sporting greats, with functions also focussed on building a great camaraderie and fellowship amongst the sporting and business community in New South Wales.
Club members include cricket great’s Alan Davidson MBE AM and Neil Harvey MBE along with John Coates AC, former Federal Sports Minister John Brown AO, Gordon Bray AM, Ron Coote AM, Richard Colless AM, Sir James Hardy OBE, Peter Kerr AM and many other sporting and business luminaries.
Other female members of the club include Gai Waterhouse, Sandra Sully, Kerry Chikarovski, Steph Brantz and Olympian, Kirsten Thomson.
On her appointment as Chairwoman, Caroline commented on the honour she feels to be leading a club with such a traditional and talented membership.
‘I would like to thank immediate past Chairman, Bernie Campbell for his great assistance to me personally in my three years as Deputy-Chair. Bernie has been an outstanding Chairman and the committee and the club are very grateful for his professional and warm leadership.”
“The Carbine Club of NSW has always been an exclusive club given the rich history of the membership and I’m enormously honoured to be entrusted with the Chairmanship for the next two years. To be in the company of such wonderful gentlemen and accomplished Australians as Alan Davidson, after whom our annual “Davo” Award is named, Sir James Hardy, Ron Coote, Richard Colless and so many others, is an incredible privilege.”
“However, the Carbine Club of NSW is also an extraordinarily inclusive club as well. I have been warmly welcomed over the years as a guest, a member and a committee member and have received wonderful support in particular from previous Chairmen such as Richard Colless, Jamie Barkley, Michael Crismale and immediate past Chair, Bernie Campbell.”
Caroline is looking to the future with the Carbine Club and the Committee is planning for a return to major fund-raising functions later in 2021.
“Everyone is welcome at our larger functions and we encourage people to take tables and bring guests. To be able to rub shoulders with the greats of Australia’s rich sporting landscape is something I never cease to be excited by and the more we fill the functions the greater the return to junior sporting clubs in NSW.”
