SYDNEY SOLDIERS' CLUB.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18294, 10 January 1923, Page 9

SYDNEY SOLDIERS' CLUB.

INSTITUTION CLOSES DOWN.

EIGHT YEARS' VALUABLE WORK.

[from: our own correspondent.]

SYDNEY. Jan. 3.

After nearly eight years of useful, selfsacrificing work the Soldiers' Club closed its doors finally this week. It is estimated that during that time there have been approximately 3,000,000' callers, or an average of nearly 400,000 a year. The club -was opened when the first Australians to return from the war arrived in Sydney. A place was needed where those men who had no home ■in town might find good accommodation and recreation. The building— old Royal Hotel in George Street—was the property of the State Savings- Bank commissioners, who magnanimously placed it at the disposal of the committee of the club free of rent for the whole time. For many returned men the club had become a home, as well as a sayings bank— place to which they naturally gravitated when visiting the city from the country, and where they placed their "cheques" in the hands of the secretary, drawing day by day as much as they needed. .Not a few of the returned soldiers who have "nest eggs" in the Government Savings Bank to-day started their deposits in the club's books, and having had a sensible holiday found themselves with a balance of their savings left. The amount represented in this direction approaches six figures, and the services rendered by the club to the men in a multitude of other ways cannot be estimated. ■ ', The building has now been sold; however, and because of the inability of the committee to find new quarters which would permit of their carrying on without being forced to make it an entirely commercial concern the club must pass. To many grateful ex-soldiers it will remain as a really pleasant memory of the war period. , J • ,