The Parkes VIEW Club has celebrated 50 years of service to the Parkes community.
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Fifty years ago, in the month of September, 1969, the Parkes Day VIEW Club was formed.
An article appeared in the Champion Post dated Friday, September 19, 1969, accompanying it was a photo with Mrs E Cheney (President), Mrs P Woods, Mrs J Williams (State VIEW Secretary), Mrs E Bell (President of the Parkes Quota Club), Mrs D Ellis (State VIEW President), and the guest speaker for the meeting, Mr Grant Taylor.
The occasion was celebrated on a Saturday, August 31, so that as many members and guests could attend with a theme of "A Masquerade Ball".
Held at the Astro Dish, the display tables showed the collection of 50 years of newspaper articles about the VIEW Club, plus display books showing Parkes in the early 70's and Australia during the same time. Two laptops also illustrated these themes in slide shows.
Parkes members welcomed VIEW Club members from the Forbes Club and from the Wellington Club.
They also welcomed Parkes Shire Council member Wally Biles, who on behalf of the Shire, congratulated our Club for 50 years of activity in Parkes, supporting the Smith Family "Learning for Life" students.
Parkes Mayor Ken Keith was also able to drop in for a time later during the meeting, also congratulating us for our work for the Smith Family.
VIEW were very grateful for this acknowledgement of their work since the founding in September, 1969!
During the meeting, members were raising even more money by having a "raffle". For $5, 10 tickets could be bought, and then each ticket with the name of the person placed in a container in front of an item. Later, a ticket was drawn from the container to win the item. And what were the choices of items? It was anything from a bottle of wine to a big box of chocolates to a shopping voucher to a large bunch of flowers.
Meanwhile, the Trading Table had lots of goodies, too. There was a stack of paperback books to home-cooked foods to crockery to small appliances.
All this was happening after a very short business meeting, followed by lunch and a cake cutting of the special birthday cake designed and made by Kath Swansbra. There was an additional decoration next to the cake showing an acknowledgement of the 50th Birthday.
Overall, there was much fun and laughter, helped by our President Vicki's jokes, plus all the great bargain items sold from the trading table, and the many, many raffle deals, then catching up with each other.
Five past Presidents were in attendance: Pam Nankivell (1971-1973), Marilyn Pizzaro (1992-1994), Toni Lam (2000-2003), Vicki Archer (2006-2008, 2012-2013, 2016-2019), and Sue McLennan (2013-2015).
Members also noted that one member was a VIEW Clubber for 40 years. Rhonda Reddenbach was called to the front of the room to receive her special badge with the number 40 on it! She has been a great supporter of VIEW, and has assisted the Club by being our volunteer "historian". For the Birthday Party, she had brought many scrap books of newspaper clippings and heaps of photos that she has taken over the years of our activities!
One of the next big events that VIEW will be planning for 2020 is the big 60th Birthday of the founding of VIEW Clubs of Australia! The 50th was a great practice for this happening next year.
"Thank you" to all the guest speakers that have spoken to the Parkes Day VIEW Club during the past 50 years, to inform us on so many topics! "VIEW" stands for Voice, Interests, and Education for Women, and this used to plan our Meetings each month by our Club. All women are welcome.
Since so much took place in this month's Meeting, the explanation of what happened is long. I hope that you have a sense of all the fun and happy activities that took place.
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