Club that runs Riverhead Polish Hall grants women full membership, with voting rights

Women’s suffrage came to the Riverhead Polish Independent Club this week.

Until a bylaws amendment was approved Tuesday nights, full membership with voting rights in the 117-year-old Polish Town club had only been granted to its male members. 

Women have been welcomed as associate members of the club for some time, but associate members have no voting rights, so they had no formal say in its operation. The club owns and manages Polish Hall, a cornerstone of the Polish Town community in Riverhead, for many decades. 

Female members have been active in the club and have worked hard at events, at fundraising and taking care of the facility, the club’s president, Thomas Najdzion said in a phone interview yesterday.

“It’s been a long process,” he said. “I’ve been trying to change the bylaws at Polish Hall, since I’ve been President, since Ziggy passed away,” he said, referring to longtime club president Ziggy Wilinski, who died in 2021.

“It’s been an uphill battle,” Najdzion acknowledged. “But as of Tuesday, we finally voted some new members in, and we finally voted the new bylaws in,” he said. “So now, everybody, 18 years and up, male or female, and anybody married to and anybody adopted by a Polish-American Polish person is eligible for full membership,” he said. “So we covered all the bases.”

Najdzion said he had called a special meeting in March to take a preliminary vote on allowing women to be full voting members. A lot of lifetime members turned out and the majority present were opposed to it. But the bylaws require that a vote to change the rules be taken only at a regular meeting, not a special meeting, Najdzion said. The next regular meeting was April 27. And that meeting saw a better turnout of newer members. The bylaws amendment passed 25-4. 

“They kind of got upset with me because they think I pulled the fast one on them. I said, well, read the bylaws,” Najdzion said. “I followed them to the letter.”  Najdzion, an Iraq war veteran, is commander of the Riverhead VFW Post 2476, knows something about following rules.

Jim Matuszewski, who’s said he’s been a member about 18 months, was present at Tuesday night’s meeting and said it was contentious. “Once they realized that we had a great membership drive, and we’re going to overtake the vote, you know, they were getting up and walking out. It was yelling and screaming. It was—it was ugly,” Matuszewski said.

Prohibiting women from being full members just wasn’t fair, he said. “The women do all the work there. They do the fundraising, they do the cooking at steak night, they do the serving, and they raise money to help the club exist,” Matuszewski said. “It was just absurd.”

He said new members he recruited were incredulous. “They were, like, What do you mean? It’s 2025 you can’t have women? Is that even legal?” 

Being relegated to “second-rate status” as an associate member discouraged women from joining, Sharon Matuszewski said. Now she will join the club too. 

“As a woman business owner, I can see that you need to have a little more control when you get involved in something. And absolutely that was not the case. So now, yes, I will join, and I will recruit other women who have the same like-minded interest in Riverhead and making it more community-oriented. And, you know, kind of rally around Polish Town and kind of bring it back a little bit more,” she said. 

Sharon and Jim Matuszewski own More Storage, a new self-storage facility on Marcy Avenue in Polish Town, across the street from Polish Hall.

Membership dues don’t even come close to covering the cost of operating Polish Hall, Jim Matuszewski said. Expenses include property taxes, utilities, insurance and upkeep, and probably add up to $100,000 a year, while dues bring in only about $3,000 annually. Lifetime members — members of 25 years or more who are 65 and older —don’t pay dues.

The club needs more members and more sources of income to be sustainable, Najdzion said.

“We’ve done a nice new thing with Ziggy’s place downstairs,” he said. “We have bands playing there now, and we’re trying to attract younger people, or people that like music and whatnot, or who want to just hang out bowling, or this and that,” Najdzion said. “It’s going good. The younger crowd is loving it right now. They’re coming down there, they’re bowling a couple games and they’re having a good time. You know, nobody gets in trouble, and it’s just becoming a good thing,” he said.

The recent membership drive brought in 24 new members, Najdzion said. “Now they’re going to just blossom and bring in more people after that. It’s gonna take off.”

Polish Hall offers a catering facility with a ballroom and commercial kitchen available to rent for weddings, parties, concerts and other events, as well as meetings. On the last Thursday of every month, the club hosts a popular monthly “steak night,” which is open to the public (reservations are required) offering a full steak dinner for $40 per person. A cash bar is available, as well as raffles. Polish Hall also hosts a Polish Festival in August, offering Polish food, beer and music during the Polish Town Street Fair. More information about Polish Hall is available on the Polish Hall website.

The lower level features a bar, a bowling alley, pool table, dart board and the new “Ziggy’s Place,” named for Wilinski, offering live music and entertainment Thursdays-Saturdays. More information and news of upcoming events is available on the Ziggy’s Music Room at Polish Hall Facebook page.