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History

The club was founded in 1967. The first Annual General Meeting of the Rangiora Bridge Club was held on Wednesday 28th February 1968. At that time the club had been operating for nearly 12 months and had 37 members. The club was also running a tuition class that had started on 14th February 1968, which had 31 participants. Bridge was played at the Rangiora Nursery School, for an annual subscription of $2.00, with 30 cent table fee. The chairman was Mr. T. M. Penny, with Mr. A. F. Scoggins as secretary.

In the early years, the subject of purchasing "club rooms" has surfaced many times in the minutes. Augusta Scoggins saw the old Kaiapoi Golf Club advertised for sale or demolition, and declared this would be the new Rangiora Bridge Club rooms. What vision.

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On July 11th 1973, a Special General Meeting was held were the motion was put and passed, to allow the committee to proceed with purchasing the Kaiapoi Golf Pavilion and have it removed to a site on the Rangiora Borough Council's reserve at Good Street. Sufficient promises had been received from over 70 club members to enable $8,000 to be raised, by a 4% debenture issue.

The rooms, which were derelict, were purchased for $300. A building removal firm was contracted to lay the foundations and move the building from Kaiapoi to Rangiora for $3,000.00. photo7The members contributed again with painting, carpentry work, curtain making and other skills.
The balance sheet of the "new clubrooms account" shows total expenditure as $11,659.35, with $9,750 of that being raised by debentures.
Bridge started in the new rooms, at Good Street, in 1974.

The 40th anniversary of the club was held in these club rooms.
photo940th-cake40th-party

These club rooms were removed, as the pictures above depict.

The new club rooms:
Club members again rallied around to raise funds to build the new club rooms. Fundraisers included bridge tournaments, a garden party, an auction, and a quiz night.

The pile driving started in October 2010. The steel framing was assembled in November, December and January. The roof and wall cladding was applied in March and April, 2011. The interior fixture and fittings were installed, rooms painted and carpet laid. The building was officially opened on September 3rd, 2011, by Mayor David Ayers and Janice Pocock, chairperson of the Building Committee.

Simon Hollander wrote the poem on the right, to commemorate the opening of the new premises.

poem