Lunch is on the Horizon
Organisers of the sold-out Horizon Foundation Biggest Blokes Lunch are waiting to be given the all-clear for the event to go ahead on November 12 at Echuca Racing Club.
The Echuca-Moama organisation had run the event for eight uninterrupted years before being forced to cancel the 2020 lunch due to COVID19 lockdown conditions.
Horizon Foundation chair Garet Stobaus said the event had been sold out, but the foundation’s organising committee hadn’t ‘‘locked in the date’’ until things were clearer.
‘‘The lunch is sold out, we have 300 people committed,’’ he said.
‘‘We usually stage the lunch on the first Friday in October, but we made a decision early to put it back to November 12, but that date is also still pending.’’
Mr Stobaus said the option of running the event as an outdoor event was discussed before being shelved.
‘‘As soon as we pull the trigger on an outdoor event, Murphy’s Law will kick in and give us weather that we have never seen before,’’ he said.
‘‘And the racing club is a great venue. They are a great supporter and it’s important to us that we have it there.’’
Mr Stobaus said the foundation had received a commitment from regular hosts Scott Cummings or Damien Fleming, that one would be available for master of ceremony duties.
‘‘Flemo and Scotty are happy to help us out again, they were both reasonably comfortable that they could get some quality speakers for the lunch,’’ he said.
‘‘We’ve previously had Simon O’Donnell, Ricky Ponting, Peter Moody from the racing industry, Fraser Gerhig, David Rhys Jones and David Parkin. There are always some great stories.’’
Mr Stobaus said the foundation would make a decision on this year’s lunch ‘‘in the next week or two’’.
‘‘We will try to read the tea leaves and get it off the ground for this year,’’ he said.
The luncheon raises $45,000
for Echuca Regional Health, to fund its prostate cancer nurse.
‘‘We run a raffle through the course of the day, then there are 10 or 12 auction items at the end of the day,’’ Mr Stobaus said.
‘‘Echuca Racing Club event is a terrific venue for us. We try to support them as much as we can.’’
The not-for-profit organisation’s charter is to provide funding for the hospital’s prostrate and breast cancer services.
‘‘The bulk of our proceeds go to funding the hospital’s prostate cancer nurse, Serena Morley. She has been in that role for three or four years,’’ Mr Stobaus said.
The foundation’s other major fundraising event — Postie Bike Ride — was ‘‘sold out’’ for 2022.
The event, based at Halls Gap in the Grampians, involves three days of out and back courses to challenge the 50 plus participants.
Each participant must raise $1000 on top of their entry costs, which supports the hospital’s dedicated prostate care nurse.
‘‘We see it as the equivalent of what the McGrath Foundation does with its breast cancer nurses,’’ Mr Stobaus said.
Last year’s Postie Bike Ride was held at Bright, saw 51 riders take part across three days, raising $65,000.
‘‘One group of riders raised $11,000 between them,’’ Mr Stobaus said.
That was the foundation’s third staging of the event.
The Horizon Foundation has a strong cross-section of knowledge on its eight-member committee.
‘‘It helps when we want to take the temperature of the community. Currently on the committee we have Darren Stephenson, Brent Turner, Jamie Hearn, Steve Bird, Dick Phillips, Jamie Hawkings, Darren Clark and Hayley Lawton,’’ Mr Stobaus said.
‘‘There hasn’t been a lot we’ve been able to do. Hopefully that will soon change.’’
Another foundation initiative is the sale of its Little Blue Towels, which are made from recycled single used cotton towels, provided by the ERH and initially used by surgeons during their scrubbing up procedure.
‘‘We launder them and sell them through the Bendigo Bank each year,’’ Mr Stobaus said.
‘‘They sell them for their provincial and rural branches.’’
Mr Stobaus reminded the community that the foundation ‘‘was still here and still trying’’.
‘‘We were front of mind for a long time with the Murray Meander. Hundreds of people walking around in pink and blue shirts attracts a fair bit of attention,’’ Mr Stobaus said.
‘‘We are still here and trying to run our events to keep our commitments to the hospital’s prostate nurse and breast cancer where we can.’’