Gold Coast Papua New Guinea Club Inc

Introduction

On 4 June 2013, the Gold Coast PNG Club celebrated its 40th Anniversary at a grand function held at the Gold Coast Arts Centre. Guest of Honour was the PNG High Commissioner, His Excellency Charles Lepani, whose keynote address was well received for its candour and insight into the land that we all hold so near and dear to our hearts. There were around 80 members in attendance and all enjoyed an excellent luncheon as well as much reminiscing of `taim bipo’!. However, this all began quite differently, a long, long time ago……

Early in the 1930s there were two men flying aircraft over the rugged terrain of New Guinea. One was Doug Elphinstone based in Wau, and the other was Bob Wilson based at Lae. Both were flying for Guinea Airways. Terry Powell must have often heard their aircraft in the Bulolo Valley as he went about his job of collecting the gold from the BGD dredges one by one and supervising its manufacture into gold bars. These three men were to organise the formation of our club 40 years later on. They each went to war: Bob flying in the RAAF in the Middle East, Doug in the RAAF in NG, and Terry with the NG Volunteer Rifles.

As did some hundreds of others, these three expatriates and their families retired to the Gold Coast in the early seventies. They often partied on at Arthur Ewing's house and invariably talked of starting a PNG Club on the Coast. But it was the Xmas Party at Terry & Eve's house in December 1972 that proved to be the catalyst. The 39 guests who attended all agreed that a club must be formed, and Doug, Bob & Terry undertook to arrange things. This party also sparked off the idea of a Luncheon for the ex-PNG Ladies, the first one of which was held in February 1973. These lunches, held at the Apollo Motor Inn, were started by Elaine Barwick and June Mynard and were held for some years before eventually becoming the present Bi-Monthly luncheons of our men and women of the PNG club today.

The inaugural meeting of what is now the PNG Club was held in the Southport Trotting Club on 12 May 1973. It was an evening function. $4 per head covered some drinks followed by a dinner and then the meeting! 187 people attended. 140 became foundation members and paid up their $1 annual fee.

Some members who attended remember with amusement that many of the ex-Territorians attending begged cigarettes from Dr Tonnakie: this was because Tony was well known by firstly asking his patients for a cigarette before discussing their respective ailments or pregnancies.

Wal Fishwick as our first secretary then issued a newsletter to all that attended and called it Garamut, though he signed it with the nom de plume of `The Brolga’.

News of the club's formation spread rapidly, and issue No. 2 of Garamut listed 205 paid up members. The provisional committee had in the meantime drawn up a set of rules, and had issued a cardboard badge to all members. These rules were adopted at the next meeting at the Trotting Club on 21 July, same scenario, $4 each for the dinner and drinks.

Issue No. 3 of Garamut was of five roneoed foolscap pages, and Wal Fishwick realised what a potentially draconian project he had undertaken. So he appealed for help.

Unfortunately, he was not knocked over in the rush of volunteers, so he had to bravely soldier on! Our late member Pat Born then typed the next issue for Wal, and her husband Rolf said "If you call this thing Garamut then you should have a drawing of one!" Pat said, "OK, you do one!" So the next issue had a crude sketch on the wax stencil of the drum. (Do you remember the awful messiness of producing wax stencils in those days?) This issue also listed its 600th member, Elaine Bruce, who later became a Life Member.

The name of the club was changed from the Gold Coast New Guinea Club to the Gold Cost Papua New Guinea Club as Independence drew near, Brig Ralph was President and Garamut announced that there were now 705 members—but half of them were not financial! It also announced that membership of the Southport Golf Club had risen to $60 pa for members and $36 for associates! (It was real expensive to be a player in those days!)

The March 1975 Garamut contained social gossip for the first time: it was headed "Jottings", the forerunner of Tok Tok Bilong Yumi. The financial membership had dropped to 327!

The Christmas Sing-Sing of 1975 was one of the most enjoyable events held under the most deplorable conditions. It was held at Sea World, then just newly moved to the Spit from its origin at Carrara. All would have been perfect but for the rain. There was a torrential downpour just as most folk were queued up waiting to get inside! Once inside things were little better. Inadequate rain protection and the area became damp if not actually wet underfoot. Electrical cables were also lying around in the water! Gusty winds made sure that the rain permeated to all and sundry. One lady member, resplendent in new dress, now wet, had her neighbour's dinner dumped in her lap as he tried to cut his meat. In true Territorial fashion this did not dampen the spirits of this crowd who were determined to have a good time!

1976 saw new President Bob Wilson take charge and Alec Edwards started a five-year stint as Editor of Garamut. With the help of artist Bill Weise and others the Magazine took on a more modern form, with Robbie Weise coining the title of Tok Tok Bilong Yumi.

In 1976 the most extravagant extravaganza ever organised by our club was held at the old Chevron Hotel in Surfers Paradise. It was a feat of organisation and deserves the highest praise in all matters except that of financial prudence! Professional entertainers were flown in from Sydney, and Mr Oala Oala Rarua was official guest as the PNG High Commissioner. His beautiful daughter accompanied him. It was a wonderful evening by any standard. Paying for that evening could have bankrupted the club but for some after the day financial assistance by a few of our members. Part of the reason for the appalling financial deficit was the unintended "Take-away" liquor facility provided by the waiters who kept putting unopened bottles of spirits on most of the tables!

Tom Leabeater took the reins as president in 1977, and, helped by his wife Thelma, started outings like the Coomera River and Golfing boat trip. For one of these excursions in 1978 to South Stradbroke Island they had organised a boat to depart from the wharf at Surfers Paradise; and had warned the company concerned that most of our members would like to have plenty of drinks available. The company assured the committee that there would be plenty of liquor aboard the boat. Before the boat had cleared Paradise Waters the crew had to declare an unexpected berth at the old Grand Hotel to restock grog supplies! Later, on the same voyage, the company had to acquire a speedboat to further augment the same commodity!

1980 is remembered for some successful committee initiations. Ira had started her term as Secretary, Robbie Weise had joined a year before; and thus started what can only be described as the "Robbie" era. Her influence as Editor of Garamut and her following work as Assistant Secretary resulted in the expansion of the club and the changing face of the Garamut from being something more than a roneoed news sheet to that approaching a magazine. Her conscientiousness to that work made her a very popular member of our club, and certainly earned the privilege of being awarded life membership.

Robbie's husband, Bill, an artist of some ability, produced our painted Logo on a sheet of curtain backing cloth, which we still use at our luncheons. He also improved the Garamut Logo for our magazine. Our present computer has copied this and still uses it on its front page today.

Ray White (Celia's husband) started his record 7-year term as our president. Ray was a quiet yet popular president, and was excellent in committee. His patience was admirable. This was a useful attribute because he had earlier been possibly the most unpopular public servant ever to embrace PNG. This was because he had been appointed as the first ever Taxation Commissioner in the country.

We began to have our committee meetings and functions at the Southport Yacht Club. This was followed by several venues as we sometimes followed a particular caterer around!

We were all far more active in those days. We had some excellent Christmas parties, which were really more of an extended cocktail party with finger food, lasting until well past 11 pm on occasions. They usually included dancing and other forms of entertainment often provided by our own members.

In 1984 Geoffrey took over the Treasurer's job from Dot Malcolmson, and, trying to impress all and sundry, introduced a balance sheet to our accounts. Succeeding Treasurers have not spoken to him since! Vivienne McEvoy took over from Robbie as Editor in 1986, and gained many accolades with her skill and wit. Mary Buckley did most of the typing that this involved in the days before the computer.

Bill Weise became president for a year in 1987 with Bill Nicholson and Neville James as Vice-Presidents. Wal Fishwick took the chair for two years in 1988, and became our first president to get married whilst in office. His then new wife May Venmore is still a member but now lives in South Africa.

In 1990 two people actually wanted to be the President. Our first-ever ballot elected Craig Kirke to the job. He soon had the committee on their toes with his dash and no nonsense approach to our affairs. He did his best to ensure that we all enjoyed our freedom from our pre-retirement work with his commonsense attitude to our planning. He himself took an active part in most of the parties and the entertainment that he and his committee arranged.

Bill Nicholson took over as president in 1992. A popular appointment, especially after he served six years as Vice-president organizing all of our functions. Despite all the hard work he applied to this job, he is often remembered for the excursion that took us all up to O'Reilly's before the days that you could get any liquor there! Members took it in good spirit, but insisted in calling into the Canungra Hotel on their way home coming down from the mountain! Bill Nicho's skill as a tactician was also demonstrated when he arranged for a politician to come and talk about a forthcoming federal election involving the introduction of GST, then took his wife Heather off to Hawaii for a holiday just before the event. The Vice-President found he had a political uproar to deal with when one of our members vented his disgust with the speaker's policy and the party that she represented. Our guest speaker, being a politician, took it all in her stride, but our usually enjoyable luncheon atmosphere degenerated rapidly. Luckily, our member Bill Schleusener rescued the decorum of the meeting by insisting on taking the annoyed gentleman outside for a drink. That particular Vice-President has had a soft spot for young Bill ever since. Bill also later got him to pay for the drink!

Geoff Hutton became president in 1993 and was to rival Ray White for his seven year tenure in office. In less than a year, however, both Wal Fishwick and Viv McEvoy passed away suddenly. This caused near panic for the committee, which had to arrange membership lists for the audit and produce the next issue of Garamut for printing. Geoff, with a lot of help from Norm Anderton, soon mastered the computer side of things and all went well.

A reintroduction of the cocktail party as one of our annual events soon followed the arrival of Vin Smith, Peter Best and Andrew Melville to the committee. The Queensland Premier was our guest of honour to the first such event. Andrew Melville also gave a big boost to the popularity of Garamut when he revolutionised the format of our magazine back in 1997.

Olive Siggs became our President in 2000 and introduced some entertaining features such as fashion shows to our luncheons. To see folk like Bob Bowmer swinging down the aisle in fancy gear along with some of our other intrepid volunteers was a great idea and enjoyed by all. Olive also started to represent our members at Anzac Day, Remembrance Day and such. President Gabe Malouf took up the reins in 2008 and continued this task during his seven year tenure, assisted by Vice-President Greg Pike on the few occasions he was unable to attend. Gabe, assisted by his able committee, presided over the move to Southport Golf Club as the venue for Club bi-monthly luncheons and he was the driver to host the Independence Dinners at the Gold Coast Arts Centre, a magnificent venue which was also the venue for our Club’s 40th Anniversary function in 2013!

It would be remiss not to mention the sterling job that Ira Halliday did as our long-serving secretary during all of this time. From typing address labels on typewriters to organizing the printing and stuffing Garamuts in envelopes, her house was always one immense clutter of club material on both all tables and floor space. She was always forgiven for being a bit bossy at times with the rest of us and despite her often stern face in committee we all loved her. Running our business as well as the Garden Club and doing Meals on Wheels she hadn't much time for nonsense.

Whilst we have always respected the importance of our member's links with PNG, particularly on Independence Day celebrations in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast, our club has always had the modest aims of its origin. To maintain the friendships created whilst living and working in that country and to continue to take an interest in that country that we all each assisted to become a nation. We don’t aspire to grandiose aims of continuing to promote a better political or economic future for that country, but believe that we all wish it well in that endeavour.

There aren't many associations still going on the Gold Coast that started over 40 years ago. Our earlier life which we shared with that new country to our north; its people that we got to know so well, and the job we all did there, still provide us with a common bond which will last all our lives. All the issues of Garamut have been bound and will exist as a memorial to the efforts of our members, and especially to all of the 100 plus people who have served on your committee since that Trotting Club meeting 42 plus years ago.
No one individual has made our club what it is to-day. Many of those members, mentioned or not in this screed, have spent many hours of their time in past years doing mundane jobs such as folding Garamut sheets to typing its pages as well as run of the mill organizing facets.

In a short summary such as this, we cannot name all those who have served us and served us well. However, our thanks and appreciation go especially to those who have served us long.

Current financial membership sits at 340.