Call me suspicious but I think clubs in profit will only give Fort Fumble the ammunition to further justify the funding cuts!
Our financial year is calendar year, but we will be in a small profit again for the 2nd consecutive year. Not enough to go buy me my Harley, but profit nonetheless.
Our turnover is nowhere near that of Gordon's or Manly's. In fact, it's less than half of either. So we must be doing alright to keep the expenses down. Or perhaps we just have nothing!
Back when I was in the public sector, the annual budget strategy rewarded incompetence, and penalised efficiency and good management.
If your division overspent, then they would get an increase of funds and headcount for the next budget cycle, regardless of how the money was actually spent. The efficient managers who could achieve their outcomes within budgets, had their budget slashed for the following year. Money had to be found for the overspenders, so the efficient were punished to be able to provide for the incompetent.
Most "good" (and I use that term advisedly in a Sir Humphrey Appelby context) managers ensured that they managed to overspend each year even if the basis of that overspend was rather "cynical" in nature.
We now turn our attention to SS clubs. There is a danger that those who manage to exercise financial restraint and live within their means are liable to be penalised by the inefficient and incompetent being rewarded with bail out grants because they are too important to allow to fail.
IMHO, the way things seem to work Belly should have got the Harley, charged it to "Ground Hire" and sat back and waited for the inevitable bail out.
There does not seem to be enough recognition for a job well done for living within constraints and doing the right thing.