Rotarians prepare for Murray Bridge club’s 70th anniversary
Preparations are underway for a celebration of 70 years of Rotary in the community on March 9, and all members, ex-members and friends are invited.
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Seven decades have passed since one of the world’s biggest service clubs first established a presence in the Murraylands – a milestone to be celebrated at a dinner next month.
It was on February 27, 1954 that newspaper publisher Frank Hambidge and 22 other businessmen gathered for the charter meeting of the Rotary Club of Murray Bridge.
Rotary International had been established in the United States 49 years earlier as a means for professionals to find fellowship and achieve good things in their communities; and had reached Adelaide 30 years previously.
The Murray Bridge club was one of the first established in country South Australia.
Since then its members have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, for community projects around the region and the world.
The club also gave birth, figuratively, to two other Rotary Clubs: Tailem Bend in 1960 and Mobilong in 1980.
The Murray Bridge club’s first project was securing radio earphones for every bed in the Murray Bridge hospital, through funds raised during an evening of poker, pontoon, two-up and other gambling.
Under president Harry Beauchamp, Rotarians commandeered Murray Bridge’s town hall during the 1956 flood, coordinating sandbagging and other relief efforts.
In the club’s early years, members had flashing lights put in near school crossings; installed the wishing well at Diamond Park in 1957; championed efforts to secure a house for an old folks’ home, “Rest Haven”; developed Weigall Avenue Reserve in the early 1960s; and, in 1970, opened a lookout with a tower on land donated by Lindsay Sims, on what is now Lookout Drive, Murray Bridge East.
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Long-serving member Ron Jericho recalled going along to his first meeting in 1977.
“The very first Rotary meeting I attended was at the motel on Adelaide Road, and the dress code was a jacket, suit and tie,” he said.
At that time, only men could become members, and only one member was allowed to join from each vocation.
Mr Jericho was an earthmover at the time, though he eventually got involved with the establishment of Murray Bridge Lutheran Homes and Unity College, then started Murray Computers.
What had kept him coming back to Rotary meetings for almost 50 years?
“I enjoy the fellowship,” he said.
During his years with the club, it erected bus shelters around town, built and sold a home to raise funds for the Murraylands Homes for the Aged, ran an op shop, organised an air show at Pallamana in 1984, and established the Murray Bridge Rotary Art Show two years later.
Some of its projects were less heralded but no less important, like having house numbers written on kerbs around the town or facilitating 76 international youth exchanges; others were unsuccessful, like a plan to clear all the willow trees off Long Island in the 1990s.
More recently, the club has been involved with swap meets, golf days, calendars, music for dementia patients, making prosthetic hands, sponsoring overseas students and sending playground equipment to Mongolia, among countless other projects.
Past members invited back for anniversary dinner
Seventy years on, the club will celebrate the milestone with a dinner at the Bridgeport Hotel on March 9.
Anyone associated with the club over the years, including past and present members and their partners, is invited to come and reminisce.
The dress code for the event will be lounge suits or after-five wear.
- Tickets: $65 at www.trybooking.com.
- RSVP: Contact Jenny Phillips on 0407 239 845 or at murraybridgerotary70th@gmail.com.
