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CLUBS LENDING A HAND

Mooloolaba club is a driving force in golf tourney success

by Jim Macready
Rotary Club of Mooloolaba, Qld.
The Rotary Club of Mooloolaba, Qld., has played a vital role in the success of the PGA Tournament at the Coolum Hyatt Golf Course on the Queensland Sunshine Coast for two years.

The latest tournament was over four days in December, 2003, in glorious weather. Predicted storms kept their distance and rain did not fall until a few minutes after Australian golfer Peter Senior sank the winning putt.
That night a deluge came. For many years the Rotary Club of Mooloolaba provided volunteer labour without which the Coolum Classic Golf Tournament would not have happened.

The club’s involvement continued when the Coolum Classic became the PGA Tournament. For play on each of the four days the club supplied an average of 35 Rotarians and their partners and friends to update scoreboards at the 18 holes and to staff the main entrance gate.

For its services the Rotary Club of Mooloolaba earns approximately $A6,500 which is available for distribution to local charities. Much time was spent in the run-up to the tournament by a small and dedicated group of golfing Rotarians to ensure that all went smoothly.

This tournament not only provides a substantial economic boost to the Sunshine Coast but also enables organisations such as Rotary to generate funds for those in need in the area.

When Australian tennis champion Lleyton Hewitt caddied for Australian golfer Greg Norman at the PGA Tournament at the Coolum Hyatt Golf Course on the Queensland Sunshine Coast, it was arranged for Lu Meinesz, a Rotary Youth Exchange student from Brazil, to be photographed with him as a gift for her father, a tennis fan. Australian golfer Peter Senior, a fitting winner of the tournament relaxed with Rotary volunteers at a barbecue at the event’s end.

For most of the past year The Rotary Club of Mooloolaba has hosted Lu Meinesz, a delightful Rotary Youth Exchange student from Brazil. She charmed all and certainly met the ideals of the Rotary Youth Exchange Program.
Some members were aware that Lu Meinesz’s father was a tennis aficionado. It was also known that Australian tennis player Lleyton Hewitt would be appearing at the PGA as caddy for Australian golfer Greg Norman.

With the co-operation of the tournament director, it was arranged for Lu Meinesz to have a surprise meeting with Lleyton on the lawns of the Coolum Hyatt. She was overwhelmed.

The resulting photograph (autographed by Lleyton Hewitt) is a delight, Lu Meinesz saying it was the highlight of her stay in Australia.

Rotary service includes a haven for the ducks

Members of the Rotary Club of Westhaven, Auckland, N.Z., have muddied themselves to create a duck pond for rehabilitating birds at the Preserve Plant Earth Matakana Bird Sanctuary near Auckland.

Not many Rotary clubs can boast of having undertaken a project that made the ducks happy, but Westhaven is proud to make such a claim.

Fun, and a great deal of hard work, went into making the ducks feel at home.

Comments such as “concreting is just like mixing cake mix using gravel, builders’ mix and water’’ and “I was so pleased the duck pond was finished in one day as I am sure if we had needed to return the next day I would have called in sick’’ were overheard at the Rotary meeting following the working bee.

The Preserve Plant Earth Matakana Bird Sanctuary is a wildlife heritage project developed by Rotarian Shawn Bishop and her husband, Michael, to rehabilitate New Zealand native birds and other species back into the wild.
The project receives small amounts of government funding and large amounts of Rotary volunteer labour.