RSA poppy fund: Investigation call over welfare spending as Papanui president foreshadows resignation

He said it’s because he had suffered considerable abuse since the poppy fund borrowing became public. “Have I made mistakes? Probably more than one,” he told the Herald. “But it’s not for want of trying to help veterans.”

The Papanui RSA borrowing was identified in a Herald investigation that studied three RSAs undergoing significant change after the classic hospitality model saw an erosion of reserves built up for veterans’ welfare over decades.

The Herald revealed the Papanui RSA owed money to its Anzac poppy fund from at least 2008 through to 2026. The debt started before Clark’s presidency and continued throughout it, and after he left to become the national RSA president from 2014 to 2022.

The use of poppy funds at Papanui RSA contrasts with the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association’s advice to the 183 clubs across the country that donations from ANZAC day poppy fundraisers should be ring-fenced and used only for veterans’ welfare.

Wood, co-founder of the No Duff veteran support group, filed a complaint with Charity Services on a personal basis as a veteran calling for the regulator to examine Papanui’s use of poppy funds, and whether a national system-wide audit was needed.

Wood said his complaint was made “in good faith and in the public interest, specifically in the interest of New Zealand veterans who are the intended and legal beneficiaries of poppy trust funds”.

He alleged the Papanui RSA had used the poppy money “to cover the organisation’s persistent structural losses rather than directing it to its registered charitable purpose of veteran welfare and support”.

Wood’s complaint quoted Clark and other RSA stalwarts’ assurances that poppy money was only used for welfare, saying the regulator needed to consider a review of all poppy and welfare trusts to ensure money donated by the public was being used as it should be.

Charities Services director Charlotte Stanley confirmed complaints had been received. “We are looking into this matter in line with our usual processes.”

Herald inquiries have found Papanui RSA’s general manager, Wendy Clark, relied on the poppy fund to pay bills from breweries, Inland Revenue and others, but it remains unclear who began the practice.

The current Papanui RSA president, Doug Francis, said Clark did so in the context of a failing club where an executive board was disconnected from its floundering finances. It’s a description supported by a former board member at Papanui RSA, Judy Fanning, and former RNZRSA chief executive Marty Donoghue.

And, according to immediate past national president of the RNZRSA, Wayne “Buck” Shelford, it’s a story that could be playing out in many of the RSA clubs dotted around the country.

Wendy Clark – who was married to Barry Clark until around 2017 – died with a brain tumour in November 2022. Her death at 64 caught many by surprise as she had kept the diagnosis quiet.

The RNZRSA farewelled her as “one in a million” in a Facebook post, applauding her work as the Canterbury welfare support manager. It also said: “Wendy was also the general manager of the Papanui RSA, a role she performed so effectively her advice was sought from RSAs across the country.”

Francis said it was only after her death in 2022 that the structure of the club’s finances became apparent. He said a review of the accounts – which took months – showed it could not survive as it was.

Francis said the club’s executive committee had, for years, lacked specialist business knowledge, which made Wendy Clark’s job very difficult.

He said that when he learned how bad the finances were, he told those on the executive that the club’s building would either have to be sold, or club members would need to donate $1000 each to keep it going. And if that latter option was chosen, he said he would resign.

Francis said when he was appointed president, it took time to organise the accounts into a form that could be understood. A plea to then-RNZRSA general manager Marty Donoghue led him to help arrange and partly pay for a discounted business plan by a top consultancy.

Francis said the inquiry into the accounts showed Wendy Clark had been withdrawing money from the welfare fund of Anzac Day donations to pay the club’s bills, recording the fact she had, and reporting that to the club’s executive committee.

“She was doing what she thought was right and had been doing it for a number of years. I would say she was robbing Peter to pay Paul and unaware what she was doing was not supposed to happen” Francis said.

“I realised early on the only thing we could do was wind up the club. It had been running for 100 years and it thought it could go on the way it was.

“There’s got to be an investigation.”

Francis - who had a small business background - said the anxiety associated with the state of the accounts weighed on him mentally and physically. He said he struggled to sleep, experienced chest pains and was consumed by stress.

“If BJ hadn’t come back [to take over], then I would have had to come back [as president] and it would be the death of me.”

The Herald’s review of Papanui RSA’s accounts showed almost $800,000 of accumulated club equity was lost from its peak in 2014 as it increasingly relied on borrowing from the poppy donation trust to survive.

The accounts also show nearly $1 million in cumulative operating deficits and deteriorating trading performance over a dozen years before the sale of its clubrooms, despite rising Christchurch property values and substantial accumulated assets.

The sale of the clubrooms was a painful blow to a proud RSA. New Zealand’s most decorated soldier, Charles Upham VC and Bar, called Papanui RSA his own. The club recognised Upham’s connection through the Charles Upham Room, which was rented out for events. Upham is buried next door at St Paul’s Anglican Church.

The use of the poppy fund money was recorded every year for at least 17 years in the club’s accounts filed with the Register of Incorporated Societies.

Francis said there was a culture of disengagement from daily financial management among the executive.

Judy Fanning – who served on the RSA executive around 2019 and 2020 – supported the account from Francis, saying she joined the committee so her small business experience could plug an experience gap.

But she said it was difficult getting details about the finances from Wendy Clark, who “didn’t like being questioned”. She said Clark was accustomed to carrying the load herself, “totally invested, totally loyal and an extraordinarily hard worker”.

“I think she felt she was an island, that she was unsupported ... I admired her. But she was misdirected.

“At the time, the club was struggling. It needed financial help.”

Fanning said the executive was “in awe” of Wendy Clark and didn’t press for financial details. When Fanning did, it became awkward. “Because you don’t have that business maturity there it became personality-driven.”

Accounts were not presented monthly and Fanning remembered one annual meeting when the accounts hadn’t been completed.

She said her role on the committee was a bruising experience and she did not stand again. “They were good people, just not in the right roles.”

Former executive members contacted by the Herald said they did not recall being aware of the debt. Fanning, too, told the Herald she was unaware. “I’m astounded and feeling a bit ashamed I didn’t know.”

Donoghue, the national general manager Francis called for help, knew Wendy Clark well. He said she spoke to him often about finances at Papanui and the executive at the club.

“She struggled to make sure the executive knew what was going on. She was trying to present some serious problems to them.”

His recollection of Wendy Clark is of someone who poured her life into whatever the RSA needed. That included the wider veteran support role as the district support manager, as the club’s general manager and even as someone who would fill in behind the bar when needed.

“I was conscious of the amount of work she was doing. She was one of the little battlers.”

Donoghue said the RSA movement remained a puzzle yet to be solved. It had huge wealth built from earlier generations and business models that were failing and eating into that reserve. A solution remained elusive, he said.

During Donoghue’s tenure, there was an attempt to tough-talk RSAs into realising change could be necessary. He said the national office was always open to talking to clubs about different models they could adopt that stayed true to RSA core principles.

It didn’t work. “It was really disappointing.”

Shelford – who served three years as president of the national association – said RSAs needed to keep their core purpose in mind – remembrance, support and advocacy – and consider whether hanging on to a failing bar served those purposes.

He said the description of Papanui’s losses, lack of financial clarity, reliance on poppy funds and eventual club sale would ring true with many clubs across the country.

He said it was an issue that had national office “pulling its hair out” – former RNZRSA chairman Martyn Dunne had estimated $100m in value had been lost from the RSA movement in recent decades.

“Now we’re talking governance. You need really good people to keep working the governance to make sure it is done correctly.”

Finances should come before the executive at every monthly committee meeting, he said, and all those present needed to fully engage with the accounts.

Shelford said there were about 80 physical clubs of the 183 RSAs and many of those remaining were locked in models of the past, determinedly hanging onto their bars.

“They just can’t let go of it and they get worse and deeper in the shit instead of making a good decision early - close it down and sell it off.”

To any club that had dipped into its poppy fund, Shelford said: “You’re fooling yourself.” At that point, the club is probably beyond recovery.

“They’re just too proud or their egos have run away with them saying ‘we can make this work’. If it was your money, would you do that?”

David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.

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