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Frank gave us a really terrific talk about Apex Apex was a Service Club founded in 1931 by 3 young architects in Geelong. The Club was for males aged 18 to 40 and was structured along the lines of Rotary, with a basis of Community Service. I joined the Apex Club of Karingal when it was formed in 1966. I will run through a few of the service projects, some with a fund raising aspect. In the first few years, we supported the Woorinyan Sheltered Workshop project which had an estimated cost of $120,000. Our Club demolished the old asbestos cement clad cottage that had served as a workshop up until that time. The first fund raiser was a playhouse raffle. We had a couple of builders in the club who basically built the playhouse, a painter who painted scenes of cowboys and Indians on the outside, and one of the members had space in his store to house the construction. With the playhouse on a trailer, each Saturday, down to the BP garage in Wells St to sell tickets. We raised around $1,000 from this project. Other projects supporting the Workshop included slashing of blocks of land that had a fire clearing notice. The Council gave us the list of the blocks that had the clearing notice, and we would take a home made slasher, and clear the block for a fee that went straight to Woorinyan. No worries about snakes. They were as scared of the slasher as we were. Slave jobs where we did gardening, painting and similar jobs for a fee, again to Woorinyan. The biggest fund raiser was done in conjunction with the other service clubs in Frankston, a walkathon, from Woorinyan in Cranbourne Road, out to Boundary Road (now McLelland Drive) and back down Skye Road. A great supporter of this walkathon was the father of one of our members, Sir Reginald Ansett, who also made sure that his fuel supplier for his planes, Mobil, kicked in. Support from Council and Police was also given freely. Over all, $40,000 was raised, and with the Government 2 for 1 subsidy, the Workshop became a reality. Another project was a Mile of Cents raising money for the Peninsula Air Ambulance. In Central Park Frankston, (where the Hoyts Cinema complex now exists) . We encouraged pedestrians to put coins along a line on the pavement, raising $300 for the Air Ambulance. Not sure if that one would work today. There were no $1 or $2 coins at that time. Another fund raiser with a lot of fun. Wine bottling. We would purchase a 200 litre drum of wine. Our 1st lot was claret and reisling. Bottling was done at Peninsula Cordials, which was owned by one of our members. Corks were rated at 2 or 3 years. The most sought after task was the syphon. The syphoners needed to be driven home. The spillage had to go somewhere. The last project I will talk about is the emergency lights. Electronic gismos to bring help were many years away. One of our members developed a box which housed a battery and switch and a flashing red light which was located in a front window. These were given to elderly ladies living on their own. One lady in Seaford got us some interesting publicity when she kept testing if the alarm was working. I enjoyed my time in Apex very much and I still have many friends from that time. Unfortunately, Apex has faded to just a few clubs in the country area, although Queensland and Western Australia look quite active from the web page. I am glad that Apex led me to Rotary.
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