For Joe Clement, 83, and Gwen Clement, 81, dancing at Birkenhead RSA is a highlight of the week. Photo / Doug Sherring
For Joe Clement, 83, and Gwen Clement, 81, dancing at Birkenhead RSA is a highlight of the week. Photo / Doug Sherring
Once, the Returned Services' Association clubrooms were the heart of every New Zealand community. Now, they are selling their assets, going into receivership and in some cases, closing their doors. We trace the sad demise of a national institution
Sitting at the bar at the New Lynn RSA, Barry Postill is surrounded by a small group of mates, each as silver-haired as he, and each nursing a handle of lager.
The former British air force member and retired carpenter has been at the club since his wife dropped him off at 9.30 this morning, and it's not unusual for him to pop in every day and spend most of the day there.
The 79-year-old joined in 1967, originally for pragmatic reasons. "This was a dry area," he recalls. "There was nowhere I could get a beer. Then it became a place to meet friends and play darts - we've done that for a great many years."
But over the years, his group of friends at the club has dwindled. "There's been lots of changes. For one, darts is no longer popular."
To him, it feels a bit as if the club is going the same way.
Michael Stevens, sipping a beer next to Postill, can remember when they'd have a table of at least 12 people on a Saturday afternoon, yarning and watching sport.
"Now we're lucky if we can get four. It's just a chance to get together, you don't get the yobbos you'd get at the pub."
Veteran member Barry Postill is pessimistic about who will take his place at the New Lynn RSA bar. Photo / Doug Sherring
Both men are worried about the future of their RSA, and Postill doesn't know where they are going to find enough veterans to populate clubs of the future. "We're not fighting a lot of wars."
The New Lynn club's vice-president, George Clarke, has been a member for 30 years and says it's a struggle to attract new people.
"A lot of old members have passed on. There's been quite a downturn in spending at the bar."
But New Lynn is really one of the lucky ones - the club is at least keeping its head above water. Around the country, other clubs are amalgamating or going under.
Takapuna's RSA is reportedly almost $50,000 in debt to the national organisation. Palmerston North, which owes about $80,000 to the national body and up to $2 million in general, has been placed in receivership. Tokoroa has become an adjunct of the Tokoroa Workingmen's Club, New Plymouth operates one night a week at a bowling club's premises and is auctioning off its memorabilia, Wainuiomata is in liquidation, and South Canterbury and Timaru were considering merging.
The Returned Soldiers' Association, as it was then, was founded after World War I, offering support for returned servicemen and women and their families. At first, membership was limited to those who had served overseas in the war. Then membership was broadened to include servicepeople who had not been overseas, and, more recently, associate memberships were offered to the public.
The number of clubs peaked at about 220 in the 1950s and 1960s.
Now, there are 120 clubs around the country and 60 more that do not have premises.
The clubs provide more than a meeting spot - they also do charitable work, providing things such as help in to get to hospital appointments.
The RSA's nationwide membership has stayed constant at roughly 100,000 since the clubs' inception. But now 60 per cent of that membership are people who have not served in the armed forces.
And while new members might be joining, most are not young. Clubs say most of their members are over 70 and fewer are coming in and spending money. Estimates are that only 10 to 15 per cent of RSA members actively engage with their club.
In New Plymouth, RSA president Hawea "Guv" Grey has just returned from watching some of his club's memorabilia go under the hammer.
Items auctioned included a soldier's lunch box with an unopened tube of Marmite, sweetened condensed milk and canned foods. There were also bayonets, photo albums, pictures, shells, swords and postcards.
"We had the memorabilia and the artifacts in storage and it was costing us money we haven't got."
He says the club's welfare system and poppy trust are reasonably flush but because the club does not have its own premises, and meets only Friday nights at the Tasman Bowling Club, the only money it gets is from the subscriptions of its 480-odd members - of which the national office takes more than half - and a weekly raffle.
"I really can't see the younger crowd joining an RSA. In New Plymouth in 1976, there was a thing where you went around the mountain and had a beer in every liquor establishment. Now I don't believe you could get down the main street. Why would a young person want to come and drink with old fogies?"
Grey says there was a lot of opposition to the memorabilia being sold. But in the 10 minutes he was watching the auction, it raised almost $1,000. A brass shell went for $110, and a sword for $500.
Other clubs are offering sports teams the use of their clubrooms because they are licensed to provide professional hospitality.
In the snooker room of the Dargaville RSA, John McLean is finishing a game with a group of regulars. Apart from a couple of men at the bar, they are the only people in the club.
John McLean says his Dargaville club has lost a third of its members. Photo / Malcolm Pullman
Rumours have been flying that the club is on the verge of going under. With gritted teeth, McLean says it's holding on, despite formidable hurdles to climb. First, there were the added compliance costs that now come with running a bar, then the Kaipara District Council increased the rates, then insurance costs went up and the region had a drought, slashing the income of farmers.
Most of the members who aren't farmers are on the pension, and it's not easy to get them to part with their money at the local club.
The club has lost a third of its membership over the past three or four years. And those who are coming in are spending less. McLean has been a member for 30 years and remembers when the snooker room was so popular you had to put your name down to get a game. Now, most of the tables are covered over.
"A lot of people haven't got too much money for relaxing these days," McLean says. "It's serious but we're doing what we can. If worst comes to worst, we'll look at plan B. What that is, we'll decide when it happens ... If we could get more bums on seats, it would make it easier."
Opening hours have been cut and the amount of stock reduced, and the club has put a lot of money into revamping its pokies because spending had dropped off.
"That should change the clientele," says McLean. "If it doesn't pay off, tough. If it does we'll be like a phoenix rising from the ashes."
The national organisation had its first logo rebrand a couple of years ago and is embracing social media to try to attract new members.
Birkenhead's RSA has redecorated, manager Garry Cooley says, to get rid of the dark, musty corners that a lot of people associate with RSAs. Had it not, the club would not have had a future.
"People don't want to feel as if they're sitting socialising in a museum."
Non-service members are 900 of the club's 2,000 members, up from 300 a decade ago. Most of the club's money comes from the bar, and events such as a karaoke night on Fridays get younger people in.
But Cooley says silence is observed every evening at 6pm to remember those who have been lost. Now, it's not just people killed in action - "It's 20 seconds to reflect on the friends and family who may have passed."
Despite his efforts, some of the couples at the club's Wednesday afternoon dance say they haven't noticed much change. Gwen and Joe Clement were members of the club in the 1970s, while Joe was still a serviceman.
Now they are in their 80s, and their trips to club are the highlight of their week. Gwen says: "We'd like more to come on a Wednesday ... we hope what they are doing works."
The president of the East Coast Bays RSA, Geoff Ockleston, says a revamp is paying off for his club - although it came with a bit of pain.
"We get six to eight new members every month. We're remaining pretty stable."
Clubs have to get over themselves and become attractive to the public, he says. Some older members were resistant to change - especially when it meant teenagers coming in on a Friday night, T-shirts hanging out, to play pool. But Ockleston says that is an opportunity for the club.
"There's not much for teenagers to do in Browns Bay in the evening. There's been one or two grizzles from some grumpy old buggers but most of us have grandchildren and we know that's the way they dress and behave, we've got to accept it."
The Dargaville RSA hopes its pokies will draw new members. Photo / Malcolm Pullman
RNZRSA chief executive Stephen Clarke says only a handful of clubs have closed or gone into receivership. The last one in Auckland was Eden-Roskill.
Clubs such as Palmerston North or Wainuiomata, which is in liquidation, had been a worry for a while. "They have had trading concerns for years but were not addressing those issues and ignoring some advice."
With the RSA centenary nearing, Clarke says it is a good time for clubs to look at how they can remain current.
"Providing good value food for families is where the RSA can play a special place," he suggests.
Some clubs are rising to the challenge, he says. In Gore, the club has remodelled a room into a children's and teenagers' space, which has resulted in an increase in business.
But in Takapuna, manager Paul Trevithick says the national organisation is not helping. His club owes the head office $48,000 in capitations - the $10 a member annual fee that supports the national organisation.
"Membership numbers are dropping," he says. "The younger people tend not to go to RSAs; they want to go to the flash bars."
Trevithick says he would not be much worried if the club stopped calling itself an RSA, and just became a club like any other, but its social obligations remain important.
"It's nice to help members out with welfare. That's one of the reasons the RSA exists."
Back at New Lynn, Postill is blunt when asked whether the next generation will take his spot at the bar.
"No," he states. "We've got to be realistic. We have 4,000 members but many don't turn up. How can we support people who are not as lucky as us if we don't have the money?"
His mate Stevens gazes into his beer. "In your 80s, you're more likely to reach for your pyjamas than head down to the club on a Friday night," he muses.
