W East's million-dollar baby

WANGANUI East Club will soon look like a million dollars.
On Sunday, club members approved a $1 million upgrade of the Wakefield St buildings a move sparked by the club's huge growth in membership.
Manager Denis Dorgan said in the last five years, membership had doubled to 1000 members, while the club itself had remained relatively small.
Kitchen and bar staff often struggled to keep up when there was a big crowd and busy periods saw long queues at the bar, he said.
The club already had about two-thirds of the $1million required for the upgrade and the rest would be raised through a bank loan, Mr Dorgan said.
The planned development would give the club a new and bigger kitchen area, from the space gained by pushing its eastern wall back about 10m.
The bar area would be redone at twice the size and the outside garden bar would also be extended, along with the upstairs office area, he said.
The revamp would also see a full TAB added to the club, along with a refurbished gaming area.
He hoped the revamp would attract new members.
The Wanganui East Club began in 1974 as a working men's club and had since grown out of just being a drinking place, to also include dining, sports, darts, snooker and petanque, Mr Dorgan said.
Ninety-five percent of the club's members live in Wanganui East and forty percent were female, he said.
The revamp was a natural development of other extensions, for example the garden bar, which had been done over the last five years and led to increased membership.
Now the extensions were approved, the architect would be able to move forward with the plans, which would then go to tender.
The work was scheduled to start in January next year, Mr Dorgan said.
Club member Verne Knapp, who used to own the Fordell pub, said he approved of the plans for his "home away from home".
"We need extensions," Mr Knapp said. "The club's getting bigger, the memberships getting large so we've got to get bigger." "I'm very much for it," he said.