The Waipa Workingmen's Club has been a gathering place for Te Awamutu since 1969, when it was incorporated under the Incorporated Societies Act 1908. What began with a Friday-night conversation in the old horseshoe bar of the Commercial Hotel has grown into a full-service community club offering a restaurant, bars, a gaming lounge, full TAB facilities, live entertainment and courtesy coaches — all in an atmosphere where members can meet and enjoy one another's companionship.
Food and drink sit at the heart of the club. The Rafters Room restaurant serves meals from the Rafters kitchen, and members receive a discount on food and drinks. Sports fans are well catered for, with full TAB facilities, multiple areas where four sports channels can be viewed at once, pool and snooker tables, and dart boards.
As an affiliated Clubs NZ club, Waipa WMC members also enjoy a range of extra discounts and special offers through membermarket.co.nz. The club's facilities are available to hire for weddings, 21st birthdays, conferences and other types of functions, with members receiving discounted hire rates.
Beyond the bar and restaurant, the club runs a wide range of sports adjuncts — a Friendship Club, 8 Ball, darts, racing, fishing and gun clubs — plus member social activities and plenty of off-street parking.
Find the club at 139 Albert Park Drive, Te Awamutu, open from 1pm most days (from 10am on Saturdays), with late nights Thursday to Saturday.
Perched on Albert Park Drive in Te Awamutu, the Waipa Workingmen's Club has been pouring drinks, serving meals and bringing people together for more than half a century. Established in 1969 — incorporated on 4 March that year under the Incorporated Societies Act 1908 — the club began, as many good ideas do, with a conversation at the pub. Gordon Batt raised the notion of forming a workingmen's club in the old horseshoe bar of the Commercial Hotel one Friday night, an advert was placed in the Courier calling for interested parties, and the inaugural meeting followed in the old band rooms, a building that now houses the Woolshed Theatre.
Getting the club off the ground took commitment. Founding members took out debentures of $10, $20 and $50 to finance the project, and with backing from Waikato breweries and the Bank of NSW, a section of land was bought on Park Road. There, an old blue-painted house served as the first clubrooms before plans were drawn and builder Jack Russel Ltd set the new rooms in motion. From those modest beginnings grew the busy, welcoming club that serves Te Awamutu today.
Today the club offers a full spread of amenities: a restaurant, bars, a gaming lounge, full TAB facilities, pool and snooker tables, dart boards, live entertainment and courtesy coaches. The Rafters Room is the club's restaurant, with food coming out of the Rafters kitchen, and members receive a discount on food and drinks — a nice incentive to make the club a regular stop.
For sports fans, the club is hard to beat. Full TAB facilities cover racing and sport, and the club has multiple areas where you can view four sports channels at once, so no one has to miss a moment of the big race or match. When the screens aren't enough, there's pool and snooker for cue players and dart boards for a social throw.
The Waipa Workingmen's Club is also a hub for organised activity. Its sports adjuncts cover an impressively wide range. The Friendship Club runs ten bus outings a year to factories, museums, tourist attractions, craft displays and race meetings, and hosts its own popular social day each July. The 8 Ball Club plays in-house challenge games mainly on Sundays, with club competitions every few months. Darts teams contest the Te Awamutu district league on Tuesday nights from March to November, playing double-start, double-finish games in six-player teams.
Racing enthusiasts have their own adjunct too, with a private room at the racecourse kitted out with its own TAB, two teletext TVs and a refreshment fridge. The fishing group organises trips to venues on both the east and west coasts, mostly through the warmer months, while the gun club runs clay bird shoots, an annual Coroglen shooting competition trip, a turkey shoot and a duck shooting get-together in the first week of May.
The club's facilities are also available to hire for weddings, 21st birthdays, conferences and other functions, making it a practical choice for milestone events in Te Awamutu. And as an affiliated member of Clubs NZ, the club extends its members a range of extra discounts and special offers through membermarket.co.nz.
You'll find the club at 139 Albert Park Drive, Te Awamutu, with plenty of off-street parking. Opening hours run from 1pm on weekdays — Monday and Wednesday until 8pm, Tuesday until 10pm — with Thursday and Friday trading until late, Saturday from 10am until late, and Sunday from 12 noon to 8pm. Courtesy coaches are among the club's amenities, so transport needn't be a barrier.
Whether you're coming in for a meal in the Rafters Room, an afternoon on the punt, a frame of snooker or simply the company the club promises — great people, great food, great atmosphere — the Waipa Workingmen's Club makes an easy case for membership. Details on joining, hiring the venue or upcoming events are available at waipawmc.co.nz, by phone on 07 871 3923, or by emailing office@waipawmc.co.nz.