Help find a home for our props

The members of Taradale’s Tiffany Variety Club have been invited to play at many venues over the past 36 years, but now they’re out looking for a new spot.

But not to set their tapping feet upon to accompany voice and dance, but somewhere to store the colourful collection of props and costumes collected over nearly four decades.

‘‘We’ve got to be out by the end of next month,’’ Helen Jones, a 13-year veteran of the club, said yesterday as she and other members started sorting the hundreds of items ready for a shift to . . . ‘‘we don’t know yet’’.

The landlords of the site they have used for those 36 years off Church Rd in Taradale were themselves saddened to have to ask the ladies to up sticks, but they needed the storage rooms to cope with their own growing needs, Mrs Jones said.

‘‘So we need to find somewhere soon . . . time does get away on you so it could get a bit desperate.’’

The Tiffany Variety Club is made up of mature ladies, most in their 70s, although Mrs Jones said there were a few ‘‘young ones’’ in their 60s who take part in the club’s annual fundraising shows. Through the years they had accumulated a ‘‘fair bit of stuff’’, she said.

‘‘When we got word we would have to get out we had a bit of a clear out but there are still a lot of costumes and props there that we’ve made through the years.’’

She said the ladies made the costumes themselves, and were working on new ones for the next planned charity show set to be staged in early October.

‘‘We’ll have 18 on stage— we’ll be travelling around the world— our big OE, so there will be things from all over the world.’’

The club had been formed as a way to both raise money for charitable causes and to forge good friendships.

‘‘We’re not professionals but we’ll get out there and dance, sing and do a bit of comedy. It’s fun.’’

But for now minds were on finding a new storage area about the size of the average garage, and securing a long-term lease.

Mrs Jones said a couple of the husbands of members had already begun moving storage shelves. Anyone who has a suitable shed, or knows of one available long-term, can give Mrs Jones a call on 844 9423.

PHOTO/ GLENN TAYLOR LOOKING: Tiffany Variety Club president Helen Jones (right) and Patricia Parsonson with some of the many props and costumes collected over 36 years for which they now have to find a new home.

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