HISTORY of the Club

HISTORY of the Club

Our 60th Anniversary

Saturday, 07 November 2009 18:35 |

Author: Lee Borradale |

Our 60th Anniversary Dinner was held at the Nambour RSL 24th July 2009.

Margaret Evans, Sturat McCoster,Her Excellency Ms Penelope Wensley AO, Governor of Queensland, President Rob Evans

Your Excellency, distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Welcome to the 60th Anniversary celebrations of the Rotary Club of Nambour.

It is an honour for our club to have so many representatives here tonight from both Federal and State Parliaments, Rotary International, Rotary Australia, Apex, and the community.

As you are aware, Rotary is an International Organisation dedicated to World Service. At a local and district level Rotary is an association of business people who together are able to engage in activities for the benefit of the Community. 60th Anniversary Dinner

You will find some of the Rotary activities outlined on your place mats, and even more information in our 60 Years of Rotary booklet which we have published for this occasion.

Rotary came to Australia in April 1921, first established in Melbourne, and it was 26 years after this, in September 1949 the Rotary Club of Nambour was chartered.

The first meeting place was Collins Café in Currie Street, where the Club continued to meet for twenty-five years.

We are fortunate to have accurate records and good photographs of the history of our club, and anticipate these will be useful at the one hundred year Anniversary.

The Rotary Club of Nambour is proud of its efforts over the past 60 years and, as a point of interest, our original Club Secretary in 1949, is still a member of the club.

We are a very active club and we are presently involved on the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards Programme, the Pride of Workmanship Awards Programme , the Drug Awareness Programme in Schools, the Indigenous Health Scholarship Programme, Bowel Scan, the Rotary Youth Driver Awareness Programme, Group Study Exchange, where one of our members has recently lead a team to Italy, and of course the Youth Exchange Programme, where we are lucky enough to have Ann with us here from Denmark, and Catalina, who we are sponsoring to Switzerland in a few months.

Award to Sir Clem Renouf by District Governor Walter Buchanan

On an International level, our club is helping to sponsor the eradication of polio in the world and, at a local level we are endeavouring to get the much needed extension of the Children's' Therapy Centre finalised.

Many of our members are involved in non Rotary-based community projects too numerous to mention and individually continue to contribute to the Nambour District welfare as do most of our invited guests tonight.

At 60 years we feel our club is as strong as it has ever been and we look forward to the future with not only pride in our past achievements, but in the knowledge that we still have a continuing role to play in the future of Nambour, and in the world, through Rotary International.

Once again, welcome to this exciting night of Rotary in Nambour.

To download a copy of the Nambour Weekly insert on our clubs history click HERE

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 18 November 2009 10:49 )

ABC Radio "The Donaldson Tragedy"

The Donaldson family lived in the Gulf Country between 1910 and 1927 and an exhibition of photographs and excerpts from letters chronicling the family's life is currently displayed in an exhibition in Longreach.

Alan and Eva recount some of that history for ABC Radio Western Queensland in April 2009

Click here for the LINK

Genesis

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ROTARY CLUB OF NAMBOUR
Preliminary Arrangements Following the end of World War 11 Rotary began to spread throughout Queensland and it was inevitable that Nambour, the centre of the Sunshine Coast, was targeted by both Gympie and South Brisbane Rotary Clubs as a potential site for a new club. It was the Gympie club that made the first move and in May 1949 Ken Hartley a Nambour businessman met with Ron Witham, Allan Murray and Bert Harris from the Rotary Club of Gympie in the business premises of Ron Witham to discuss the possibility of forming a Rotary club.
	Some five weeks later Ken Hartley, together with several businessmen from Nambour met at the Club Hotel Nambour with the District Governor Bert Broad, representatives from Gympie and Brisbane clubs to discuss the matter further. At that meeting it was decided to proceed with the formation of the Rotary Club of Nambour with Ken Hartley as President, Clem Renouf as Secretary and Ross Kerr as Treasurer. The first meeting of the Provisional Rotary Club of Nambour was held on the twenty sixth day of August, 1949 at Collins Cafe at 5.30 p.m. with a subsequent meeting on the thirty first of August to discuss the formalities necessary to form the Rotary Club of Nambour.
Charter Night One of the early highlights in the life of the Club was the presentation on October 29^th 1949 of the Charter by district Governor Alf Wynne of Maryborough. It was held at the Nambour Show Pavilion - there was no Civic Hall in those days. The charge was 10/- per head. 217 attended comprising: Club members--22, Club Guests --15, Guests of Members--64, Visiting Rotarians and wives--116 Of the visitors, 36 came from our sponsor club (Gympie), 21 from Fortitude Valley, 19 from Brisbane, and 14 from South Brisbane. Others came from Maryborough, Bundaberg, Boonah, Southport, Ipswich, Toowoomba and Kingaroy. The District (District No. 31) extended from Casino to Cairns. First Meeting Place The first meeting place of the Rotary Club of Nambour was Collins Cafe in Currie Street Nambour, with the club meeting every week on a Tuesday at 5.30 p.m. The club continued to meet at this venue for the first twenty five years, before moving to the Commercial Hotel, and subsequently to our present venue at the R. S.L. Club in Matthew Street Nambour.

The first years of Club Bulletins

Last Updated ( Friday, 22 May 2009 19:07 )