Stuff
The Anzac Day parade in Blenheim will finish at the cenotaph in Seymour Square.
Blenheim’s Anzac Day commemorations will be “pretty much the same” this year despite the local RSA losing its long-time home in the now-defunct and very-much closed Clubs of Marlborough building.
The only difference to previous years will be the time, says Marlborough RSA vice president John Capill, with everything pushed back an hour, but for good reason.
The “after-match” function on Tuesday is being held at the Marlborough Events Centre, but it can’t serve alcohol before 1pm on Anzac Day, under the Sale of Liquor Act.
So, to “save everybody hanging around for an hour to have a beer”, the Marlborough Returned and Services Association has decided to have the parade an hour later.
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Kavinda Herath / Stuff
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“It’s pretty much the same, just an hour later,” Capill said.
RSA members would “march off” from the old Blenheim library, on Arthur St, at 11.45am, arriving at the Seymour Square cenotaph for noon.
The servicemen and women and their partners were then invited to the Marlborough Events Centre, where food for 200 to 300 people was being put on, Capill said. The Marlborough District Council was helping to fund the catering as it had done in previous years in “recognition of the service of our veterans”, a spokesperson said.
She explained RSAs had a special provision in the Sale of Liquor Act to supply alcohol on Anzac Day, but their license was to their physical club premises.
“So the Picton RSA for example can sell alcohol from early in the morning as it is their licensed club premise.
“The Marlborough RSA currently doesn’t have a licensed club premise hence using the Events Centre this year. The Events Centre has a license to sell alcohol but only under the normal business trading rules for Anzac Day (from 1pm).”
Capill said the council, which runs the Events Centre, was helping with the costs this year “since we [the RSA] haven’t got any money at the moment”.
The Clubs of Marlborough closed for good in November last year due to outstanding debt and declining revenue. The Marlborough RSA was based inside the Clubs of Marlborough, which owed the RSA about $60,000.
Malcolm Hollis and Richard Nacey, of Price Waterhouse Coopers in Christchurch, were formally confirmed as liquidators of the Blenheim Working Men’s Club, trading as Clubs of Marlborough, in March.
Ricky Wilson/Stuff
Marlborough RSA vice-president John Capill and soon-to-be past president Chris Bamber showcase a memorial wall, in 2016, outside the Clubs of Marlborough, next to the Marlborough Events Centre.
Without a home, the RSA was eventually taken in one-day-a-week by the Blenheim Bowling Club, which Capill said was “going fine”.
“We’re a happy family at the moment.”
He didn’t think the bowling club could host 200-odd people, but they would “see how this year goes” at the Events Centre, in terms of numbers, and maybe look at having the post-parade get-together at the bowling club in the future.
Capill said they hadn’t heard anything from the liquidators yet, as to the money they loaned to the Clubs of Marlborough.
“We’ll just have to wait with the rest of them that’s got money in there. There’s not much we can do about it while it’s getting wound up. It’s still early days.”
An interim report on the Clubs’ finances, released in February, revealed more than 120 people, organisations and businesses had made a claim or were owed money.
The list of claimants included accountants, cleaners, security firms, office and kitchenware suppliers, gaming services and entertainers, and Stonegrill, the dining experience that was meant to revitalise the restaurant in 2021. Even their egg supplier was owed money.
The report said the Clubs was about $6.6 million in debt. Their assets, namely the property, were worth about $13m on paper, the report said.
Marlborough RSA members would be out collecting for the Poppy Day Street Appeal on Friday.
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