IT’S a criticism that particularly grates with Bathurst RSL Club general manager Peter Sargent: that RSLs are about nothing more than food, drink and gambling.
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With Anzac Day approaching, he’s expecting to hear some of the same claims being made, but says it doesn’t make it any less frustrating for the local club.
“It's disappointing when people take an opportunity to criticise RSL clubs and say we're only about beer and pokies. Because it's not right,” he said.
“We are absolutely fair dinkum about what we do.”
What the club does, he said, is support the community in many ways – from offering sponsorship to providing free entertainment to the club’s recent initiative to donate the money from its recycled bottles and cans to Lifeline Central West.
“I have been overseas enough to know that you don't see this sort of [RSL] structure,” Mr Sargent said. “It’s certainly a uniquely Australian thing. And I think we should be proud of it.”
The Bathurst RSL organisation was split into two sections in 1947 - the Bathurst RSL Sub-branch and the “Bathurst Diggers Club”, which today is the Bathurst RSL Club.
The Bathurst RSL Club provides an office and accommodation for the Bathurst RSL Sub-branch, which offers support and a chance to socialise for ex-Defence Forces personnel and their families.
“I’m really proud of how active our sub-branch is,” Mr Sargent said. “Every Friday morning in there, you can't move.
”In amongst that sub branch, you have got Nashos [National Servicemen], Vietnam Vets, an element of Reservists. They are actively part of our club.
“We really do live that relationship.”
Bathurst RSL Sub-branch president David Mills said it made sense for the two organisations to be separate, though working together.
”Sub-branches are not in the business of running a club,” he said. “They can run the club and we can get on with what we do best.”
Mr Sargent said the heritage and history of RSL clubs was clear at the Bathurst RSL Club – from the Memorial Walk Museum’s war memorabilia to the Diggers’ Bar’s wall of pictures showing Australians in conflict zones.
“The Diggers’ Bar is truly the Diggers’ Bar,” he said.