In July through to September,
1969, interest meetings were held at the Minchinbury Winery where the President
of St Marys, Tod Combet, was the manager and live on the premises (his son Greg,
you see on TV often is secretary of the ACTU). The Winery - now heritaged but
derelict - had extensive tunnels under the hill and specialised in sparkling
Burgundy and Champagne, and so these social and tennis afternoons established in
our very formative stage, the love a good drop and the fellowship that went with
it.
Our Charter was presented
to President Al Kemp, Principal of Whalan High School, on 24th September, 1969
with 24 Charter members and by 1971 we had 28 members, 17 of whom had
non-Australian backgrounds about which Secretary Len Garrod had an article
published in RDU.
Since then we have had 125
members come and go of which, sadly, at least 21 have been called to Higher
Service.
Early years saw most of the
kid's playgrounds in our area equipped on a $ for $ basis with Blacktown Council
and many working bees led by Wally Friend did the installations.
1970/71 John Van Megen
initiated Youth exchange and raised funds by organised Cabaret Nights and a
Princess Ball as well as the first of our raffles.
Community-wide collection of
unwanted medicines, led by Ross Trewin and Ian Anderson, resulted in a ton of
usable medicines (about $20,000 worth) being shipped to the flood victims in
Pakistan.
Mt Druitt Rotary raised a 5,000
name petition to Blacktown Council for a swimming pool in the area which
resulted in Emerton Pool.
Over the years we've had an
ongoing Christmas party for the senior citizens, funded in part by Annual
Raffles, which incidentally, have generated some $300,000, all of which has been
used mainly on community youth and some internal projects.
Pro-rata, we are among the top
clubs in funding the World-wide Polio-free Projects and have supported Rotary
Foundation by awarding 30 Paul Harris Fellowships, valued at $30,000. Special
fundraisers have benefited many, especially Westmead Children's Cancer Ward,
Spina Bifida Association and Careflight.
There has rarely been a year
when we missed having an Exchange Student going away and one inward bound from
all parts of the world and we are richer for the experience and similarly young
people to youth leadership camps and seminars.
