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Rotary in Maleny 50 Years of Service |
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Written by Les Fawkes
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Thursday, 25 June 2009 |
On 29 April 2009, exactly 50
years to the day after the inaugural meeting of the Rotary Club of
Maleny, Sir Clem Renouf, 1978-79 President, Rotary International
launched a book on the history of the Club. The book was written
by Club historian and archivist, Jack Wilcox. Describing the theme, the
cover of the book has the message: ‘In 1959 the village of Maleny
embraced the wide world of Rotary.
Tales of challenges, achievements
and camaraderie abound in this 50-year journey to the global village of
the 2009...graphically capturing the essence of Rotary, Service above
Self.
Clem Renouf wrote the Foreword to the book and his assessment of it is as follows:
‘Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, we shall be remembered: we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’
I know that’s not how it is written in Shakespeare’s Henry V. In fact, I’ve taken substantial liberties in paraphrasing portion of the King’s stirring speech to his outnumbered troops as they prepared for battle. But as I read Jack Wilcox’s history of the Rotary Club of Maleny, it seemed to me that these few words encapsulated the purpose and spirit of the book.
The purpose as Jack told it to me when we discussed it, was:
- To celebrate 50 years of Rotary in Maleny by tracing the transition of a club born in a dairying-based small country village, emerging in the new millennium as part of a high tech, cosmopolitan society;
- To place on the public record an acknowledgment (long overdue) of the pivotal role of the club in converting 100 acres of scrub into the magnificent rainforest retreat widely known as Mary Cairncross Park.
| Jill Morris and author, Jack Wilcox
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Jack’s thousands of hours of painstaking research, in the absence of any substantial volume of written record, have been amply rewarded. For this book speaks to us, not just from pages written by others 40 or 50 years ago, but from the mouths of those hundreds he interviewed who had first hand knowledge of the people and events chronicled in this history.
It will mean most to Maleny residents, particularly members (past and present) of its Rotary Club. But there are others like me who will read this book, come across a name and say to themselves, ‘Yes, I remember him. I had forgotten about him’ ─ and the memories will come flooding back of good times shared.
And there will be yet others who recognise few of the names, but will be interested in reading of some of the innovative programs of the club such as The Jaws of Life equipment and Rescue Trailer, the Contract for Life, the Bike Education Program, to name a few.
I found some of the specialised chapters interesting, despite my familiarity with most of them. Who could read the chapter on Youth Exchange without being impressed by the potted histories of so many young people whose lives have been profoundly influenced by the club’s participation in this great program? Or the chapter on Mary Cairncross Park with the club’s fifty year commitment to a project of great significance to Maleny and beyond.
Yes, old men do forget. But in writing this history of the Rotary Club of Maleny, Jack Wilcox has ensured that not all shall be forgotten. Jack Wilcox said the motivation for the book was twofold. The first was Peg Burnett, who came to be affectionately known as the Matriarch of the Rotary Club of Maleny. Many hours were spent with her recalling the memories of the many events and particularly the people associated with Rotary since the’50s. When Peg died Jack felt that it was important not to lose the history.
The second motivation for Jack was Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve (more commonly known as Mary Cairncross Park).
Four years of research uncovering the transformation of a ‘patch of scrub’ as Rotary’s first President Norm Tesch described it, to the magnificent icon it is today inspired Jack to put on the record the largely unrecognised, incredible contribution Rotarians and their families made to the establishment and subsequent development of Mary Cairncross Park. The work spanned decades. Jack’s estimation is that it involved somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 thousand hours of dedicated labour.
Vividly describing his feelings about the Park, Jack said: ‘To understand the drive and sustained dedication of so many men and women, I often walked alone along the tracks in the Park. I found it quite eerie. I could see Nev Anning (now in his ‘90s), on a dark, wet night in 1939 riding through that patch of scrub. I could see Nev’s horse nervously side-stepping as it was spooked by the luminous mushrooms in hollow logs, as Nev said, so bright you could read by them. Continuing along the tracks, I could hear the ghostly sounds of men laughing and cursing as they nameplated trees and constructed tracks, bridges and causeways. I could hear the sounds of women’s voices and the clash of cooking utensils as they prepared food for their men. I could hear the kids rushing around with salt and matches trying to attract the leeches. In one of her letters Peg says: ‘They were bloodthirsty little devils’ without making it clear whether she was talking about the leeches or the kids’.
Jack summed up his feeling about Mary Cairncross Park saying that he saw it as a living monument to the spirit of Rotary (Service above Self) and in terms of the time frame (decades) and hours spent he claimed it is arguably the most significant Rotary project ever undertaken in Australia.
Jack expressed his appreciation that as a result of the revelations in the book, he understands there are plans to set up information boards at the Park to commemorate the memory of those men and women who played such a pivotal role in what is today one of the showpieces of Queensland.
In every commentary he has made about the book, Jack has given special emphasis to local author and editor, Jill Morris who started out as editor but subsequently gave freely of her time over countless hours to guide him (his first attempt at writing a book) through the pitfalls of editing, design, printing, publication and marketing. The result in his view: ‘a 50 year journey which flows seamlessly from one decade to the next as the village of Maleny based on dairying and timber-getting made the transition to the global village of today’.
Summing up the book Jack said the title is does not totally reflect the emphasis of its contents. It is certainly about Rotary but could more accurately be described as a history of Maleny, the history of a country town from a service club perspective. With over 700 names in the index it could almost be described as a ‘who’s who’ of Maleny. As Jack says ‘it is a book about a community, a book about people.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 June 2009 )
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Range News 2005 - ON 
