My Account
When Marg Sinclair and her husband Bert joined the local RSA in 1960, meetings were held in an old army hut in Silverdale. Bert went on to become president of the Silverdale & Districts RSA and Marg formed an active women’s section which has continued to grow. Here she looks back at her time with the RSA.
Bert and I moved from Taupo to Whangaparaoa in 1960. We had been involved in raising funds in Taupo to build an RSA there and it had been going well. One of the first things we did here was join the local branch – back then it was the Silverdale branch of Kaipara RSA.
Bert served in the army in World War II and was a prisoner of war in Italy and Germany. He eventually escaped to Poland, where the underground movement helped to keep him safe.
He became ill in Taupo in the late 1950s and we moved to Red Beach to be closer to the specialist care he needed in Auckland. By the time he came right a few years later we were settled here and happy to stay.
The first meetings we attended at the local RSA were in an old army hut that was literally falling down around us. It was where Rotary is now in Silverdale, on the main road. I think those original buildings burned down. We had a lot of fundraising to do for the new RSA buildings. We used to go out every weekend to hotels in Puhoi and Waiwera and during the week we’d visit Orewa and the hotel at Whangaparaoa. Raffles were the main fundraiser and meat packs were especially popular. All the prizes were donated by local businesses. The new building was a prefab from Reidbuilt Homes and it’s still there now – it has been added to of course, but when we got it, it was a big improvement on what had been there before and we felt pretty lucky to have it.
There were only a few members in the association back then, but it provided a good social life and support for returned servicemen. I think one of the main things the RSA does is give returned servicemen a chance to share their experiences of the war – something that many of them found easier to do with each other, rather than their close family members.
The numbers joining our RSA grew quite fast. Peter Doughty was the welfare officer, I remember, and part of his job was to take the returned servicemen to hospital when necessary and raise funds to help with rehabilitation and other services for them. Those services are still provided by our welfare officer today.
We broke away from the Kaipara RSA once numbers grew sufficiently and formed the Silverdale & Districts RSA. I think that was around 1974. Today it’s one of the biggest in the country, with nearly 4000 members.
Silverdale & Districts RSA gained a reputation for being a friendly place to go and socialise. It was right on the main road then and lots of people used to drop in. We always had mixed ladies and men in the bar, whereas I think some RSA clubs asked ladies to leave at 4pm when the drinking started.
A few women came along to our club – mostly because their fathers or husbands had been in the war. I started up a women’s section in 1977 – there were only five of us at the beginning but I saw it grow to over 500. The women’s section opened a kitchen, which was staffed by a roster. Every Friday and at weekends we served meals at reasonable prices. The money we brought in this way was donated back to the club coffers. We also used to help with catering for funerals and other events – it became a very busy part of our RSA.
The women’s section also used to organise a lot of fun events in those early days – silly things like dressing up in costumes for dances, picnics and so on.
My husband Bert became president in 1977 and was still president 10 years later when he died. Many people tell me that he helped with the revitalisation of the club and he certainly put a great deal of work into it. As I was so busy with the women’s section, we spent a lot of time there over the years.
Eventually the RSA was getting too big for those premises, with over 700 members and we started looking around for somewhere to move to. We looked around Orewa and then one of our members found the current site in Vipond Road. At the time it didn’t look very promising – it was a big, bare piece of land that had been a chicken farm and still had a few huge chicken pens on it – but we could see the potential.
Once again raffles were our main fundraiser. I’m sure those buildings were built almost entirely on raffles! Plans were drawn up and the new buildings constructed. They’ve been added onto as time has gone by. It’s a really lovely facility and there’s always something going on there now. There are dances every Friday and Saturday night with a live band and we’ve kept our reputation as the friendliest RSA in New Zealand.
I play indoor bowls there every week and I’m still on the committee – I’ve been on the committee for about 45 years now. I also lay a wreath each year at the Anzac Day service in remembrance of the prisoners of war.
‘People helping people’ is the RSA motto, and I think that’s still as relevant today, even with less returned servicemen involved. It’s still a really important source of support for many people in the community.
ANZAC ceremonies on Friday, April 25
11am Silverdale & Districts RSA, Vipond Road, main service. If you wish to lay a wreath, contact the RSA prior to the ceremony please.
12.15pm Silverdale & Districts RSA, Vipond Road, wreath laying service.
12.40pm Orewa Remembrance Reserve, Orewa.
2.30pm Upper Waiwera Cenotaph, Weranui Road. Wreaths can be laid at this ceremony.
