70 years of Drouin Rotary
Drouin Rotary Club celebrated its 70th anniversary last week, paying tribute to its members who have worked tirelessly to deliver and support community projects over many decades.
President Pauline Maunder said the town of Drouin was so much better for the fact Rotary “has been here and the projects it’s benefitted from.”
Keith Pretty, who has been a Drouin Rotarian for 65 years of the club’s 70 year history, outlined a history of the club.
Mr Pretty said the Warragul Rotary Club initiated the move to establish a Rotary Club in Drouin.
An organisational meeting for the proposed new club was held at Marj Stevenson’s reception rooms on March 5, 1954. The weekly meetings of the “provisional” club also were held at the reception rooms, with the meal price being 45 cents, and the fines were not to be less than five cents.
The annual subscription was $8, increasing to $9 in the second year to include a donation of $1 per member to the Rotary Foundation.
The charter for the new Drouin Rotary Club was granted by Rotary International on March 29, 1954. Charter president was Fred Armstrong and charter secretary was public accountant Wal McDowell, with the charter treasurer bank manager Bill McLaughlan.
The club’s charter meeting was held in the RSL Hall, on the corner of Victoria and Palmerston Sts in Warragul on May 26 at which 274 Rotarians, wives and guests attended.
“As well as the usual components of a Rotary meeting which we know so well, one of the early activities at Club meetings was the singing of songs from the Rotary Song Book. Stewards to serve the meals from the kitchen to the tables were appointed weekly,” Mr Pretty said.
In its early days, the club provided scholarships to the Drouin Primary School, and later Drouin High School, sponsored a school library, supported the Blood Bank at the West Gippsland Hospital, and donated a blood-testing machine.
Later, bicycle stands were installed in the Main St as it was then known (Princes Way), and “mystery” picnics and car rallies were popular as social outings.
Over the years, Mr Pretty said club projects and programs had been many and varied, directed locally, across Gippsland, the nation and, internationally.
Locally and regionally they have included: Lyrebird Village, West Gippsland Hospital, the Civic Park Sound Shell, Drouin’s CFA, scouts and guides, rotundas in six parks, bushfire and flood recovery, support of local youth and students; Drouin Men’s Shed, Drouin’s Yooralla, Tipping House, Farm World and Drouin’s Australia Day activities over many decades.
Mr Pretty said Drouin Rotary’s total giving to the Rotary Foundation was US$124,656, which equated to A$191,379 at the current exchange rate.
“And all that scarcely scrapes the surface...so much of our support and involvement has resulted from our ability to raise funds and some of our major fundraising projects have included dinner auctions – one, in a marquee at Bellbird Park in 2006 enabling $50,000 to be donated to Gippsland Rotary Centenary House, and the other in the Convention Centre at Lardner Park in 2010 enabling the donation of $91,000 to the Lyrebird Village building project.,” he said.
Mr Pretty said the cornerstone of the club’s fundraising was the Drouin Produce and Craft Market which had been running for 22 years and was stronger than ever.
“But there is so much more we have done and continue to do to enhance the lives and futures of individuals and groups within our community.
“Be it buying and maintaining AEDs, delivering food parcels, de-badging uniforms for recycling, mentoring school students in projects or feeding them toast and milo, installing a peace pole in Civic Park or upgrading public seating in Princes Way we are truly people of action and will continue to be.
“I think the club can look back with a great degree of satisfaction and pride at what has been achieved over these years. We are a club of 44 members, eight of which are women. We need to recruit and adapt if we are to continue to be a force in this community,” Mr Pretty said.
President elect Mike Kelleher’s experience reinforced that Drouin Rotary certainly had a reputation as being a force in the community.
At a recent tour of Centenary House at Latrobe Regional Hospital’s oncology unit, funded by Gippsland Rotary Clubs, Mike was overwhelmed by the funding Drouin Rotary had contributed to the facility.
Mike was told when Drouin Rotary was approached for funding for an arboretum at Centenary House, the Rotarians who attended a Drouin meeting, outlined their vision and left the meeting with a $10,000 cheque.
Mike said he had a “strong emotional pride” in the club and its history.
Baw Baw Shire mayor Annemarie McCabe acknowledged the “outstanding work” of service clubs in the community.
Cr McCabe said the funds raised for Lyrebird Village , youth programs and the recently installed peace pole in Civic Park were all examples of projects that provide significant benefit to the community.
“We would be lost without the volunteers who give so much to the benefit of others,” she said.