60 Years & 3000 Meetings

My thanks to President Rick for asking me to speak at this significant milestone in the history of this Rotary Club. I do have some claim to speak of this club as it has been my club since 1980, and I have seen many changes in those 44 years of my membership.

Over a fifty-year period, our Rotary Club has been involved in many activities and causes. Some activities and projects are built into the life of a Rotary Club and are repeated time after time. For example, the Rotary Long Term Exchange program has been part of Rotary for many years, only tapering off in recent years as our membership has grown older. Similarly, this Club has supported Rotaract over many years, along with Youth training and enrichment courses. We have held Pride of Workmanship Award presentations over many years, though not always annually. We’ve sold Christmas puddings for many years, but not recently, and we have made donations of thousands of dollars to organizations and causes every year since the Club began.

Some activities are bread-and-butter functions of our Club. In recent years, with access to quality BBQ trailers, we have cooked thousands of sausages time after time. We have been able to make large amounts of money at times from the ‘Rock and Roll’ and Arts and Crafts Festivals, and on other occasions, we’ve given our time and resources to worthy organizations such as schools and other charities, for example, for Domestic Violence victims.

However, the Rotary Club of Salisbury is more than a typical Rotary Club, and over fifty years, we have been involved in some extraordinary projects. I am going to list some of the activities this Club has been a part of during this time, not necessarily in chronological order. So here we go in ten-year blocks—a series of statements!

1963-1982

• Charter dinner on 12th November 1963, and its first project to provide a truck for Barkuma
• Salisbury Helping Hand Kitchen built with an £8,500 donation
• Christmas hampers, books to Bombay, schooling for underprivileged kids in Hong Kong
• GSE from New Mexico
• Career Guidance Nights at Salisbury High School and SEHS
• Student Exchanges to New Mexico, South Africa, France, Japan
• Formation of daughter Club Elizabeth
• Cracker-Jack beer raffle at Brahma Lodge Hotel
• Formation of the Salisbury Rotaract Club
• Appeal for Darwin Cyclone funds
• Joint Rotary/Rotaract Ball
• Heart monitoring machine for the Lyell Mac
• Formation of Salisbury South Club in ’78
• The move from Brahma Lodge to the Old Spot in ’78
• Progressive dinners, car rallies, the Spring Ball
• A welder for PNG through a FAIM
• Ray Scott to PNG on a FAIM project
• Kiribati Book project
• The start of the restoration of the 1850 Little Para Water

1983-1992

• Pitman Park shelter built and twice demolished, leading to an all-night vigil until it was secure
• Big Band supper dance in CAE Theatre
• First Christmas breakfast at CD Hospital
• Square dancing nights in the Bottle Yard
• Membership of more than 50
• Rotary Radio—a weekly program through 5PBA-FM with me as the anchor for the first year and then with Sherwood Dick as the anchor/presenter/interviewer
• First Salisbury Probus Club sponsored and formed
• Construction begins of the Water Wheel Museum
• We hosted our first Rotary Foundation scholar, Duncan Wallace
• We chartered the Torrens Valley RC in Kersbrook
• $15,000 pledged from local businesses for the Water Wheel Museum
• 53 people at a Club picnic at Stanley Wines in Clare
• After many years of work, the Water Wheel Museum, a bi-centenary project, was eventually finished and opened by Sir Mark Oliphant in December 1986
• GMH Christmas parties
• The AV Jennings Polio Plus House
• The Bi-Centennial Air Show
• Project Santa with the Rotaract club
• Trash and Treasure at the Elizabeth Drive-in
• Fancy Dress Garden Party in Salisbury Heights
• Progressive Dinners, Trees For Life growing
• Demolition of building at PAL
• Proposed that women be members of Rotary (1989)
• Country music concert, port wine bottling and sales, trailer raffle, Christmas hampers
• Big garage sale at Veneer Panels ($15,000 for the day)
• Gerry de Vries to PNG Kairu Island on a FAIM trip

1993-2003

• Loss of access to Veneer Panels, so it was a trailer raffle again ($13,572) for a few years
• Formation of combined Probus Club in Salisbury
• My GSE team to Wales with me as Team Leader
• Return visit here of the Wales GSE team
• Installation of street signs at city entry points
• Move from OSH to La Casa Mezzanoti due to the introduction of pokies at Old Spot
• Mock interviews at SEHS
• Manufacture of the first BBQ trailer by John Stuart and Ron Hann
• We celebrated our first and only District Governor (1996-97) with John Downing’s wonderful Barossa Conference
• $40K raised for Cord Blood Project to support Inner Wheel
• Raffle of an Olympic Flag, quiz nights
• 2,126 smoke detectors fitted in public housing ($5,200 raised)
• Roger Dennis to Aitape in PNG after the tsunami
• Land obtained at Parafield for our storage garage
• Peter Salamon to Karka Island, PNG
• Helping Hand Fetes and the Pathway project
• Rubber Duck Derby at Mawson Lakes
• First Shed erected on 14/6/2000
• First big day at the garage sale ($4,201)
• Catering for Tree Climbing Championship
• 2000th meeting on 5th August 2002
• Another garage sale ($3,000)
• Christmas puddings, Early Settlers Bush dance…

2003-2013

• 2003 Shed improvements to show room
• 2000th meeting
• Garage sale $3,000
• Duck Derby at Mawson Lakes (the year’s hottest day and very few spectators)
• Tree planting along the Little Para
• Another garage sale with a small return
• Helping Hand Autumn Fair and Pick-a-stick
• Alan Goodall’s 40 years at 100%
• More tree planting, induction of Margaret Souter as our first female member
• Another garage sale ($1,900)
• Work party to Fiji for Rotahomes project
• BBQ at Water Wheel Museum
• Weekend away at Port Hughes
• 100 years of Rotary on display
• School breakfast for kids at SNW Primary School
• Business Breakfast founded with Salisbury B & E Centre
• Centenary Flag Pole project with Salisbury Council
• Allsorts Shop (named by Heather Tonkin) up and running
• Scholarships to all Salisbury Secondary schools
• Weekend away at Tanunda
• A 6-member work team to Solomon Islands for a malaria project
• Rick Henke to Korea as a GSE member
• Centurion Club encouraged
• RCS website established
• First Australia Day picnic
• Allsorts raised $30,000 in the year 09/10
• Shed extensions approved and done
• Town Markets in Civic Centre instituted
• Rotary Youth Driver Awareness courses at 12/25
• Another work team to Fiji, including Anthea, Brian Goodall, and others from outside our Club
• In recent years, our Club’s serious involvement in ANZAC Day and supporting the Salisbury RSL continues
• A new trailer arrived in August 2011
• Australia Day bigger and better due to new staging facility
• Gaza Shed erected to become our trailer shed
• Audio/projector gear installed in Old Spot Meeting room

2014-2024 In recent years, we have undergone significant changes as our membership has slowly decreased, with a regular meeting attendance of about 20 regulars. We were deeply saddened by the deaths of PP Rotarian Dennis Underwood, a senior statesman of the first order, and PP Alan Goodall, our last remaining charter member from 1963, along with his very supportive wife, Betty.

Their estate, after probate, made a donation of more than 1 million dollars to Australian Rotary Health Research. Rotarian and PP Brian Goodall was, at the time of his death, the Coordinator of the Allsorts Shop. Brian had been a member of Mawson Lakes, where he had been President, but in recent years was a member of our Club. Through the involvement of Alan and Brian Goodall, their overall contributions to the Club were recognized by naming our room at Allsorts ‘The Goodall Room’ in their memory. The most sudden and tragic death of our Gabby Jones PHF in just recent times reminds us all that we can never be certain of all things. Gabby was a very regular member of our ‘Ladies Sewing Circle,’ where she was a valued worker. Her efforts contributed to the donation of more than 9,000 bags to the Backpacks for SA Kids. Other long-term Rotarians have moved away, taking with them great experience. In recent years, we have mourned the loss of Rotarians PP Dennis Underwood, Ian Alexander, PP Jim Baff, Rick McInerny, my sponsor PP Colin Read, Bob Coggins, PP Colin Fogg, John Moss, and Les Poole, to name a few.

The Allsorts Shop and the BBQ team effort have resulted in a very handsome income each year, allowing the Club to make donations to several causes, not only to local causes but also overseas, such as in Cambodia and through K