We held a celebration for Hans being in Rotary for 30 years at a party at our president’s place. We managed to suprise Hans and Isobel by arranging for the DG to be there, as well as a old friend from The Rotary Club of Lindfield.
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(Sorry for the poor quality of the photos – we hope to have some better quality ones from the DG’s wife in the future)
A copy of the photo collage that the RC of Lindfield gave Hans can be seen here.
A copy of the photo collage the the RC of Oberon gave Hans can be seen here.
- Sometime in mid-1981 one of Hans’s last acts as a 1st Lindfield Group scouter was to present the fruits of its collection for Red Shield to a member of the Rotary Club of Lindfield. Hans said something like “Ah, that’s interesting!” since he had admired a Rotarian called Asger Holmboe in the Danish town where he went to school in the 1940s.
- Six months later, on 22nd December 1981, he was inducted. The annual report for 1981-82 shows that the club had 48 members, including six new ones inducted during the year.
- It also shows Hans with a 100% attendance rate for the 23 meetings during the time since he joined.
- During his time in Lindfield he held several directorships and was president in 1989-90.
- During his travels he managed to make up in Indonesia, America, and England, and visited the clubs in his old home town in Denmark where who should he run into but Asger, now in his 80s, who first inspired his desire to join Rotary.
- Making up in different countries was a mostly inspiring experience, to be recommended to any travelling Rotarian.
- Lindfield was very active in introducing Polio Plus in the Sydney area, with one member chairing the district committee. It also boasts a past director of Rotary International, John Carrick, whose other talent, demonstrated on a visit to our club in about 1998, is to recite bush poems. He did the one where McDougal topped the score (thanks to his dog).
- Lindfield was also active in youth exchange, and Isobel and Hans were hosts to about ten exchange students from Japan, Indonesia, Denmark, the UK and America.
- In 1988, Isobel and Hans decided to move to Oberon after Isobel’s retirement as a high school Indonesian language teacher. They built their house and moved into Titania Park in 1995.
- It was fascinating to move to a country-based club, whose members at the time were mainly long-term residents. Hans was careful at first not to suggest any radical ideas (the idea of making money from Christmas puddings was firmly rebuffed as certain Rotary wives had that market well and truly covered!).
- He was club treasurer for three years in the late 1990s and became 1999-2000 president, setting a target to increase membership from 16 to 25. This actually happened, including the first three women members, as well as three chaps under 40 (one is still with us, a little greyer!).
- The club has changed in many ways since 1995 but retains a very active core.
- The now oldest member admits to be less active than he was but hope to better himself in 2012!
