Michael Fallow

Reports.

Chiselled into historic Riverton’s world wars memorial are the words ‘‘Their glory shall not be blotted out.’’ The memorial itself stands on a hill overlooking the town bridge, the other side of which is the main street bedecked with some striking Anzac pennants. Outside the Te Hikoi museum 79 white crosses on the lawn bear the names of those who fell from around the town, Thornbury, Waipango, Riverton and Colac Bay in World War I.

Touching in itself, but it’s only a sampling of war tragedy. Doesn’t really include Orepuki – which was really hard hit – and this year it’s appropriately enough focused on the centennial war.

Inside the museum, special displays. We’re just in time to hear, in an adjacent room, footage of an older woman recalling that at the pictures her friend changed the lyrics when she sang along to the national anthem. She sang ‘‘God save the boys.’’ Didn’t think the king was doing that much . . .

Riverton is unassailably one of Southland’s most historic towns and, collectively, it has a good memory.

It also has three pubs and a supermarket that sells cheap beer and wine. So the RSA is hardly the only show in town.

Dave Wohlers, a fifth-generation Wohlers hereabouts, is the association’s secretary, although pretty much by default. With a membership fairly static around 185, maybe 10 of them veterans, and pretty secure financially, you could say that things weren’t too bad at all. But . . . ‘‘The administration side of it – that’s our problem.’’

At the AGM a few weeks back Wohlers, who with one of those precious bar manager’s certificates is also plenty busy behind the bar, wanted to stand down from the secretary’s position. ‘‘I’m starting to get the stitch . . .’’ But there were no takers for that job. Or the vice-president. Or the president.

With Anzac Day now upon them, the half-dozen committee members have had to put that problem aside for now and once the commemorations are over they’ll probably have to get some guidance from the national body on what their options are, he says.

They might end up calling an extraordinary meeting to lay it on the line.

‘‘We’re a great venue for the community and they don’t want it to close,’’ he says. ‘‘But nobody’s prepared to put their hand up.

‘‘So at the moment it’s more a case of those of us who have been on the committee coming back on. Just rearranging the deckchairs’’.

You have to wonder whether people see what Wohlers, Grant Ussher and Vic Breayley do around the place and figure the commitment just seems a tad too much.

Two things about that. First, this is not a call for some heroic, self-sacrificing workaholics.

There’s really not much being asked if there are a few more coming on board to share in the tasks.

And as for the three office-holder positions, you can’t put people straight in to those – they know that, Wohlers says.

Riverton RSA is doing well enough to have survived a particularly perilous time three or four years ago. The finances weren’t great and stresses were showing. For a while there it looked like things could have blown apart.

It was no small achievement getting through that and Ussher’s willingness to step up, and his steadying hand as president, had a lot to do with restoring stability. He and Wohlers getting their bar manager’s certificate certainly helped.

The RSA is open Tuesday through Saturday, 3pm to 6pm and club night, the main night, is Friday.

They can have 50 or 60 people there on a Friday, but the raffles and snowball [a jackpotting weekly prize in which members are eligible by showing up, and have two minutes to claim it if their number is drawn] are usually over by about 7.

‘‘And by 7.30pm, most of them are gone,’’ says Wohlers, without reproach but not entirely without regret.

Membership is $30 which is at the cheaper end of the spectrum. A fact which doesn’t pass unnoticed further north at times.

‘‘We did have people from Auckland becoming members, because it’s reciprocal rights elsewhere in New Zealand and in Australia.’’

For a while there they made the charge $50, but that included a $20 tab for food or drink. Boy was that short-lived. ‘‘The number of people who complained . . .’’

Enter Vic Breayley. What does he reckon about that membership fee?

‘‘I look at it as a $30 snowball ticket with about 50 chances to win . . .’’ [The odd Friday, the place is closed.] Hit him up for membership strategies and he grins broadly.

‘‘Buy the three pubs in town and run the lot,’’ he cheerfully suggests.

Full marks for ambition.