The Whangarei RSA Bowling Club is to be wound up with its assets sold for donations to charities and community organisations because the Whangarei RSA is looking at charging the bowlers a fee for their clubrooms and green.
The bowling green outside the front entrance to the Whangarei RSA on Rust Ave in the city centre was built by returned servicemen using shovels and wheelbarrows in 1947.
The two organisations are financially separate, although bowlers claim their club contributed 30 per cent of the cost of the combined site in a "handshake agreement" in the 1940s and the club did not have its name included on the title.
President Jennifer Wellwood and secretary Barry Nalder said the decision to end the bowling club was made by members at a meeting on July 6 because the Whangarei RSA had imposed a ground and premises rental effective from July 1.
The rental had come as "something of a bombshell" and the club had no intention of paying rent for the use of buildings it owns, the two officials said.