Whanganui RSA treasures welcomed at new home Club Metro

Wanganui Returned and Services Association president Geoff Chowles holds memorabilia added to Whanganui's new Club Metro. Photo / Stuart Munro

Treasures from Whanganui's former Returned and Services Association (RSA) club were marched along Whanganui's main street to a new home today.

It was the official welcome that added the RSA into the new Club Metro in Ridgway St, RSA president Geoff Chowles said.

He brought a stack of RSA memorabilia to Pākaitore in a van that afternoon.

About 70 people from both clubs then formed up to march them down to the new Club Metro.

Outside it they stopped and waited while a new flag was hoisted and "broken". Inside, the memorabilia were arranged on a table and blessed.

The items included medals from both World Wars, photographs of Whanganui's two Victoria Cross winners, L W Andrew and J A Ward, and taonga Māori.

After that a cake was cut by Chowles and the president of the former Cosmopolitan Club, Nancye Thompson.

We want to retain the look and feel of the RSA, but we don't want to do it and take over the place, because they have got their own trophies and bits of memorabilia.

Geoff Chowles

RSA items will be distributed through Club Metro over time, and rooms have been set aside there for RSA welfare work.

Four "bar leaners" will be resurfaced, with RSA items embedded in their table tops.

Plaques and art works, mainly the New Zealand oriented ones, will be added to the clubrooms.

They will represent each of the services, and items from overseas may be rotated.

The amalgamation of the two clubs is going quite well, Chowles said.

"We want to retain the look and feel of the RSA, but we don't want to do it and take over the place, because they have got their own trophies and bits of memorabilia."