A motorcycle enthusiast and son of a Royal Air Force pilot is the new president of Hauraki RSA after bringing attention to the club in the past 12 months.
Trevor Birchall, who is also the co-ordinator of the Ulysses Waihi-Thames Valley branch, was elected president of the Ngātea-based association on April 4.
He told The Profile he planned to continue his progress to make it a community hub.
“In the past 12 months, we have successfully opened the doors on Friday nights with great support from the locals,” he said.
“We have a good sporting tournament called the Tip Cup… that’s very successful, and I just started the McCarroll Cup [sporting tournament] again.
“I want to see our RSA be a real place to be in Ngātea as in the eight years I have lived here it was rarely open.”
Trevor, whose father William Jack Birchall flew Wellington bomber planes in World War II for the Royal Air Force, said more volunteers and in particular those who were younger, would enable the RSA to open more regularly. “We would like to open the doors more often to the public but because we’re running on volunteers, you don’t want to burn out your volunteers, so we can’t open the doors on a regular basis,” he said.
“We have to think about getting that next age group instead of just the 60- and 70-year-olds, we need to attract the younger generation,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter what sort of club it is… if you don’t have younger people coming on you don’t have a club in 20 years.”
Trevor, whose wife Di is also the secretary, said the club also needed to raise “quite a bit of money” for overdue maintenance.
“The building was built in 1952 and very little maintenance has been done over the years.
“We’ve still got electrical work that needs doing, we’ve got planting work that needs doing and we certainly need joinery work that needs doing,” he said.
“We will be able to apply for Lotto grants and other grants from other places but at the moment we’re getting a couple people to give us quotes on what needs to be done first.
“Hauraki RSA is there for our veterans however it is also there for our community whether they have served or not.
“After all we are a social club.”
