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2002 (c) Peninsula Community Access Newspaper Inc
Woy Woy Rotary history
The Rotary Club of Woy Woy was formed on July 29, 1950.
In its first four years, the activities the club supported fell into these two categories - direct support to destitute families and support to develop the community.
A destitute family from the Umina camping area was found housing; 100 books were donated to the Woy Woy school; another destitute family was helped after a fatal house fire.
A walking track was built on Blackwall Mountain.
When a storm destroyed the Adams family home in Umina, the club completely rebuilt it.
Money was given to buy drugs for a cancer patient in Davistown.
Rotarians went up to Maitland to help out after the 1956 floods.
At that time, there was no State Emergency Service to help in times of natural disaster.
In one year, 10 pounds went to the Parramatta-Rosehill Crippled Children's Branch.
"Crippled children" featured a lot in the club's donations.
This was at the time of the polio epidemics that swept through Australia in the late 40s and early 50s until immunisation became available.
By the mid-50s, the club was giving between 25 pounds and 50 pounds a year to crippled children's funds.
Some of the other projects undertaken then have had a lasting effect on the community.
Among these were the Guides hall, Staples lookout and Ocean Beach Surf Club.
The club saw the Guides Hall as the most ambitious project undertaken in what was then District 29.
The project kept the club fully occupied for two years.
Despite the enormity of the task, club members did the job with huge enthusiasm.
It gave the blokes a chance to get together and do that secret men's business that comes with working bees.
The building is still there after more than four decades.
In those days when there was so little for children to do in the area, the Scouts and the Guides played a huge part in providing an outlet for young people.
The club, made up of men with families, naturally saw the value of the organisation.
Staples Lookout demonstrates that it is in the nature of Rotary that decisions are not taken with a limited amount of democratic consultation.
The organisation expects people to take the initiative.
The president is given a great deal of scope to set the club's direction and to garner the efforts of the members to achieve those goals.
Directors have a broad scope in which to do the job.
In 1954, president Jack Roberts was driving back from the district conference at Katoomba when he and his passengers Mark Harris and Bruce Phillips decided to stop on the Bulls Hill Rd and admire the view of the Brisbane Water.
Then and there, they decided it was an ideal site for a lookout and that Rotary would build it.
By July 2, 1955, the Staples Lookout was complete and officially opened by Shire President JA Brown.
The project has had a huge impact on the area.
It gave prospective homebuilders their first real look at the beauty and serenity of the area.
It has become a landmark used by visitors and locals alike.
It is now an icon of the area.
In the 1950s, Ocean Beach Surf Club lived in a dilapidated building, was in financial trouble, needed a new clubhouse and Rotary undertook to provide it.
The area we now call Umina was still being referred to as Ocean Beach, a contraction of the earlier name of Ettalong Ocean Beach.
The club chose a novel method of financing the surf club.
The Rotary Club invited members of the public, organisations and Rotarians to loan free of interest, in lots of 25 pounds, money which the club guaranteed to repay at the end of three years.
The final cost of the surf club would be $8000.
Jim Huntington and Stewart Miles supervised the building, which ran right through the Rotary year.
Tradesmen gave their time free, and suppliers donated materials.
The President of the Surf Life Saving Association, Judge Adrian Curlewis, opened the clubhouse on September 29, 1957.
The project cemented a relationship between the two community based clubs which has continued for half a century.
The Ocean Beach Surf Club was followed by the Umina Beach Surf Club and both have received Rotary assistance throughout the years.
Rotary's projects were real, basic services the community needed.
The community needed activities for its children, sound sporting institutions and help for those in emergency.
The Government was not going to provide them.
The theme of the times was post-war self-reliance.
The Rotary Club of Woy Woy responded to those times but needed to find money if it was going to enact its charter.
From the time the first board met on August 1, 1950, at President Bruce Hanks' home, the question of how to raise money in a small isolated community tested the imagination of the club's office holders.
The fundraising activities they decided to undertake reflected the times.
In the early 1950s, home making was just that.
Creating a home required a lot of making - of food and clothes.
Washing was still a huge task, especially in a tiny beachside community like Woy Woy with only bore water and rain water tanks.
There was no takeaway except fish and chips.
There was little or no entertainment.
The radio and the cinema were all there was.
Umina, Ettalong and Woy Woy all had cinemas.
One of the reasons many joined Rotary was for the "fellowship".
It was a way for people to get together.
The men made the decisions about Rotary but it was the remarkable enthusiasm of their wives which also helped make Rotary the social and institutional success it was during the decades from the 40s to the 60s.
In the first year of the club, Mrs Harris, Mark Harris's wife made place names for all club members.
Others played piano at special nights. Others stocked fete stalls.
For the wives, Rotary gave focus for their socialising as well.
Community organisations often provided this in a small or isolated community.
If it wasn't church, then it was Rotary of Lions or the surf club.
Woy Woy Peninsula was a much more intimate community during the 50s at least.
The club was also much more intimate during those years.
There were few cars and members were often ferried by others to the weekly Rotary meeting.
It was during those short trips together that much of the material and mirth for the fine session at the meeting was provided.
It also gave members a chance to get to know each other a bit better.
In a small community, friendships made in Rotary often melted over into people's lives generally.
The Woy Woy Rotary Club has always had a reputation as an informed club where people could enjoy themselves - a style the club has maintained ever since.
In the club's first year, the application of "justice", the fine session, made for much merriment and entertainment and built much friendship in the club.
The club did have a serious side.
Rotarians wrote poetry, penned essays and gave speeches on topical issues.
At one stage, the club instituted a series of short speeches from members on self-selected topics.
Films were shown.
The Reverend Ros held a church service for Rotary.
The president and vice president read the lessons.
Members said the service cemented relationships with the local community.
Songs and self-made music filled many people's lives.
Rotarians played instruments, sang in choirs and entertained ambitions to act.
Rotarians employed these talents and interests to raise money in ways that filled the gaps in people's lives.
Balls added sophistication and ceremony, drama and play nights added culture and fun, and fetes let you buy sweets and treats you might not otherwise have.
Bowls and golf days brought new competition.
Raffles and chocolate wheels added legal betting.
Early on, illegal betting also provided a stream of income for the club.
What went into the annual report as card nights was not just bridge and whist.
Past President Don Legget remembers a night held on the Peninsula.
During the night the police raided it.
"Sorry," they said.
"You're doing it for Rotary."
The squad then went off and raided the real illegal casino in West Gosford.
Over the eight or so years that the gambling nights ran, some $45,000 was raised.
Two-up was a very profitable game for the club.
The acceptance on both sides of the obvious corruption had grown out of the persistence of early closing for hotels after the war.
Hotels closed at 6pm.
People wanting to drink after hours went to a local sly grog shop.
The shop gave money to the police for them to overlook the breach of an unenforceable law.
The law also created problems for Rotary.
During the 1950s, New South Wales complicated laws restricting the sale of liquor to hotels and some restaurants, made liquor with meals problematic.
Early meetings of the club were dry.
Those who wanted to have a drink would go back to Alf Ford's garage.
Sometimes they'd be able to have a few drinks out the back of one of the local hotels.
The local police were often seen in other rooms also having a few.
The problem of drink with meals was only really solved when registered clubs came along.
The 60s began propitiously with the arrival in Woy Woy of the first regular electric train service.
On January 23, 1960, the electric train was celebrated across the Peninsula.
The Woy Woy Rotary Club organised a monster procession from Woy Woy to Ettalong.
It comprised 50 floats and 400 marching girls.
Another great transport project began in the 60s - the eventual F3 freeway.
Just as the community generally was engaging in big projects, so too, the Woy Woy Rotary Club started to take on some significant community projects.
It also started to undertake larger fundraising ventures.
The number of projects and the magnitude of the task reflected a wealthier and more self-confident community.
The Olympic pool was a substantial community project supported by a number of community organisations of which one was Rotary.
The pool would take up more than half a decade of effort from Rotary.
The energy of the club was formidable.
Lookouts and parks were the big focus during the 60s.
While they were working on the pool fundraising, the club established the Mt Ettymalong Lookout.
Legend has it that one Rotarian involved in a working bee concrete pour, got up hours before his mates, went to the site, made the concrete, poured it himself, and turned up later with his mates just to see their faces at the completed job.
By the mid-sixties the club was running out of park opportunities and started to look further afield.
The newly completed Brisbane Water Drive gave the club an opening for another park, The Koolewong Rotary Park.
The Koolewong Park took up a lot of energy over the remaining years of the 60s.
The club extended it by 100 feet (30m approx) and added tables and other amenities.
Local organisations were not forgotten.
The scouts still received donations and the Umina Guides Hall was repainted along with the Sea Scouts Hall in Woy Woy.
The club organised separate lectures on cancer for men and women and built a rock pool at South Umina.
The Presbyterian Hall was upgraded in a contra deal involving rent, and the schools were helped.
The Surf Club was extended.
Rotary was still very much a community-focused organisation.
The projects were more substantial and the monies raised grander totals.
The club was still looking to practical, work-oriented projects that would improve the facility of the community.
By the end of the 60s, the club had begun meeting regularly in the Everglades Country Club.
The club had started out as a private venture, which was eventually turned into a registered club.
Despite the park successes the 60s, the Woy Woy Club still had another in mind.
It took three years, but eventually the club developed a park near the Bayview Hotel in Woy Woy.
Local government identity and Rotary President Don Leggett, worked a deal with the Department of Lands and the Department of Social Security.
He used the RED scheme using unemployed people paid for by the government.
The poor labourers used to do the work, and were confused about who they were working for.
Don Tee says the owner of the Bayview Hotel used to keep an eye on proceedings, along with Phil Tonkin, solicitor and club member.
When asked who they were actually working for, the reply by one of the workers was:
"Well, that bloke from the pub comes opens up for us, so it could be him, and the solicitor fellow comes and keeps an eye on the place, so it might be him, and then a bloke from the Salvation Army comes and pays us, so it might be him."
Another worker turned to him and said, "Well if the Salvation Army fella is the one who's paying, then I'm working for him."
Woy Woy turned on another gala celebration for the official opening of the Anderson Memorial Reserve next to the Bayview Hotel.
The reserve celebrated a self-effacing local Rotarian named Bill Anderson, a resident of Woy Woy for 42 years.
Bill arrived newly wed, had a series of businesses and died working in his own boat hire business.
The not so memorable Minister for Lands, Tom Lewis, opened the reserve.
Mr Lewis praised the Woy Woy Rotary Club for its "self-help" attitude.
President Don gave what was described as a "comprehensive outline of the history of the site".
From "We've done some silly things"
Annona Pearse and Walter Pearson