Tropical Fruits has moved quickly to reassure members and the broader Lismore community after social media posts claimed the organisation was on the brink of collapse and unable to pay contractors working on its South Lismore clubhouse rebuild.

Speaking with the Lismore App, Management Committee Chair Lisa Thorpy said while the club, like many community organisations, is navigating financial pressures, claims circulating online have been exaggerated and, in some cases, are simply untrue.

“I love our community. I love our Lismore community, and I love our Fruits community,” she said. “But unfortunately some people take a little bit of information and turn it into something that it’s not.”

Ms Thorpy said the first point to clarify is transparency. The Tropical Fruits Management Committee meets fortnightly, and those meetings are open to all members.

“Nothing happens without members having access,” she said. “Everybody’s welcome to have a voice. There is nothing that happens that the membership doesn’t have access to.”

Much of the online commentary has centred on the rebuild of the Tropical Fruits clubhouse in South Lismore, rather than the organisation’s festival and year-round operations.

Ms Thorpy said it’s important to understand there are “two aspects to Fruits”.

“There’s what I call Fruits operating… the end-of-year festival, how the club runs through the year, organising events for members,” she said. “And then there’s the rebuild project.”

She confirmed the rebuild is being funded through a grant from Create NSW, which is delivered in instalments as milestones are reached.

“As we reach milestones, they release more of that grant funding,” she said. “We’ve just reached our second last milestone and we’ve submitted the report and we’re waiting for those grant monies to hit our bank.”

Addressing one of the more serious claims circulating online, Ms Thorpy was unequivocal.

“There seem to be some posts saying there are concerns about contractors not being paid. That’s absolutely not true,” she said. “We have our legislative responsibilities that we adhere to 150 per cent. Anybody who works on that site is paid.”

She said the organisation “definitely has enough funding to get ourselves to lock up”, meaning the building will be completed to a secure stage. There is also funding to move toward occupancy. Where the shortfall lies is in the final fit-out.

“What we’ve realised as we come towards the end of the project is that we don’t have the funds that we thought we had to be able to fit the place out beautifully,” she said. “We have some money to get ourselves to occupancy, but we don’t have enough money to fit it out to make it beautiful. That’s our problem at the moment.”

As a result, the committee has called a temporary stop-work period while it reassesses costs and determines what is needed to complete the project and what additional funds may need to be raised.

Construction pressures have also played a role.

“When we started the project a couple of years ago, we budgeted it at construction costs from a couple of years ago,” Ms Thorpy said. “Like everybody else, we’ve been caught because construction costs have increased exponentially over that time.”

Unexpected works have added to the bill. She gave the example of the roof, which the committee initially hoped to retain.

“Once we actually started to go into it, we couldn’t save that roof. So that was an additional cost,” she said.

Importantly for the broader Lismore community, Ms Thorpy stressed that the Tropical Fruits New Year festival, a major drawcard for the region, is unaffected.

“The festival will go ahead,” she said. “It’s a completely separate part of the organisation.”

If additional funds are needed to complete the fit-out, local fundraising may form part of the solution, a path familiar to many community organisations rebuilding after the 2022 floods.

For Ms Thorpy, the priority now is ensuring accurate information is shared and members feel informed.