Club has 50-year history in Katikati
It was all men and dinner meetings were late nights
The Lions Club of Katikati marks its 50th anniversary thismonthwith three of its foundationmembersstill doing what they do best—“we serve”.
InNovember50 years ago Garry and Kevin Taylor and David Eddy wereamong26 Chartermembersat ameeting at theRSAHall, chaired by Zone chairmanDonBowles and initiated by the Lions Club of Waihi, where amotion was passed to form the Lions Club of Katikati.
Over the past five decades, the Lions Club has achievedmuch within our community. Without this dedicated volunteer service organisation, manywonderful and at times necessary projects would not have been carried out— the pedestrian clip-on to the Uretara stream bridge being one of them.
At the formation meeting, directors were elected and meeting dates were set. Back then it was an all-male domain— there were no womenin Lions.
Their first dinner meeting was held at the oldRSAHall (no longer in existence) and cateringwasby Bert Parkinson, the town barber. That first dinner wasmince, mashed potato and silverbeet.
The Charter Night washeld on May8, 1971 in the Katikati Memorial Hall. The Charter was presented to first president, Ray Ruane, by the District Governor Douglas Stewart. Other speakers on the night included Frank Warn, president of the Waihi Club, whosponsored Katikati Lions Club and Keith Mitchell, LCI representative.
The club decided to keep for 1971-72 the sameDirectors where possible, to allow for consolidation and formembers to “find their feet” and toknowin which direction to movethem. The Clubwas very inexperienced, only Ray had previous experience of a Lions Club and a great deal of time wasgiven to visiting other clubs to pickup ideas and to seehowthey operated. Dinner meetings in those days were often very late affairs and a sober driverwas amustwhenvisiting.
Oneidea pickedupfor fundraising was a Steptoe Auction (nowmorphed into the monthly garage sales), an event which the club held formanyyears. The first was in 1972. TheA&PHall wasfilled with goods before moving them to the Memorial Hall for auction.
Christmas Quickfire raffles were their first fundraising activity in December 1970 and these have run every year since. During the 70s these were held over three nights in town and attracted large crowds.
Their first donations were the provision of a clock for Berstein House and a “Neil Robinson” stretcher for the ambulance.
During the early days they had a unique problem— theirmembers were too young!