Taradale RSA makes it to the magic 100 years old

Young blood's at the top at the Taradale RSA, president Brayden Coldicutt (left) and manager Ben Allen. Photo / Paul Taylor

It was almost like a few weeks' shut-down in the Covid-19 crisis couldn't come quick enough for the Taradale RSA in a pre-centennial makeover which may have saved the club up to $100,000.

The spruce-up, ahead of the celebrations next month, would have been "very difficult" to do while the club was trading, say youthful president Brayden Coldicutt, 24, and manager Ben Allen, 36.

But, while the bar couldn't operate at alert level 3, it allowed just enough people through the door to do the painting and wallpapering and other work needed to bring the Gloucester St premises up to scratch in time for the celebrations from September 4-6.

It includes a paper entrance way with prints of news clippings and photos of Anzac days and other club events.

Among the events was the 75th anniversary, Coldicutt chuckling that when it was held in 1995 he wasn't even born. "I was born a year later" he says.

Despite their younger than average RSA age – Coldicutt thought to be the youngest RSA president in the country by 20-30 years – the two in charge have significant histories with the club, which has more than 1170 members.

Proudly, Allen says 20-25 per cent are active, a figure that would please most in the licensed clubs game in New Zealand.

Coldicutt, who was 22 and on the committee just a year when swept into the chair during a bit of club turmoil two years ago, is fourth-generation, dating back to great-great grandfather George Coldicutt, a Gallipoli survivor in the 1914-1918 Great War (World War I).

His grandfather, also George was a World War II gunner in New Caledonia and the Pacific and "did a lot for the club back in the day" and father Peter, while not having been to war, joined the club in 1961 and was soon helping form its concert party.

Allen's father, Ricky, a former Hawke's Bay rugby star who became a New Zealand Trotting Derby-winning harness racing trainer, managed the club for about 25 years, and while now based on the Otago coast, is a life member.

Each epitomises the family traditions they are fostering, and were already fixtures around the club well before becoming active in helping around the place in their mid-teens.

Allen recalls: "I started, breaking up cardboard, when I was 14."

He became manager in 2013, and through the current crisis has been involved in some growth of the club, including its return to running its own restaurant and taking the complex's staff from 10 to 16.

Now it's forward march to the centennial which will open with a Friday night meet-and-greet, a formal Saturday night dinner, and a service on the Sunday, followed by an open day for the families and the community of Taradale.