Where we live


The association hs had many different meeting places over the years. To name a few;

  1. The Terrace End Bowling club
  2. Midland Hotel
  3. Jaycee Hall
  4. Freyberg High school
  5. Club Hotel
  6. Commercial Hotel
  7. Raliway Hotel
  8. Carlton Hotel
  9. Palmer Memorial Hall
  10. Gordon Brown Lounge
  11. Manawatu Rugby Performance Centre


Before finally settling underneath the Pascal street end of the grandstand of the Palmerston North Showgrounds in 1975. These were shared with the Manawatu Rugby supporters club on reprsentative days.

These rooms were destroyed when the grandstand was burnt down in 1983 and the association lost all it's records. Following the fire we had use of the Kia Toa rugby club rooms for our meetings and for socialising after games on a Saturday until we built our own club rooms on level one of the then new Arena Manawatu Grandstand. This was a great feat of voluntary workmanship combined with professional help. There was a lot of sweat put into completeing this and the clubrooms were quickly replaced.

We occupied the clubrooms, known as the " Referee's lounge " in August 1989 and had hoped to be there for a very long time. But the Arena board decided to update the uncompleted portion of the grandstand and demolished our clubrooms in 2000, replacing them with public toilets and a food court.

We had a promise from the Arena board they would replace our clubrooms with new rooms similar or better on level two of the new grandstand. However, we had the use of a room that was part of the old Gordon Brown lounge before the upgrade of the ground floor. until the mid 2010s when Manawatu Rugby built their High Performance Centre on Waldegrave St. The Manawatu Rugby Referees' Association were kindly invited to utilise the meeting room here, and are still using this facility at present. Meetings take place weekly during the rugby season at 7:30pm on Monday evenings.