Below is the content of the talk given by Peter van Diemen at our meeting last week on an iconic project run by the Rotary Club of Pakenham over many years and is certainly part of our history.
ROTARY CLUB OF PAKENHAM
WHITE ELEPHANT / CLEARING SALE
When President Goran asked if I could do a 5-minute presentation on a piece of Rotary history one of his suggestions was an Iconic project. It did not require much thought that the most Iconic Project in the history of the Rotary Club of Pakenham would have to be the White Elephant / Clearing Sale.
It was during the 1964-1965 Rotary year, only 3 years after our Club was chartered, that the first Sale was held. It was then only a donated goods sale and as the name suggests, White Elephant. It could be anything if it could be sold for any amount. There was an actual statue of a white elephant that was used in promoting the event, not sure what has happened to it, but it would now be as iconic as the event itself.
The first few years of the White Elephant Sale was held on a vacant block in what is now the main shopping centre.
After 3 or 4 years it was decided to add a Clearing Sale to the White Elephant Sale, where the public could book in goods to be sold on commission. ` The venue for the sale was then moved to the then Pakenham Recreation Reserve, the home of the Pakenham Football, Netball and Cricket Clubs and the original Pakenham Hall. When that site was redeveloped to include a new Library/Hall complex the sporting clubs moved to the new Toomuc recreation reserve. The White Elephant and Clearing Sale was moved there also.
When I joined Rotary in 1974 the WECS had become a local institution, it was an event that would have the residents hold onto their unwanted goods for the sale. The date would be advertised, and people would contact the Club for us to pick up the goods. If people could not hang on to the goods until the sale we would pick them up and store them in a member’s shed.
The WECS continued to be an event that sellers and buyers would mark on their calendars and year after year you would see the regulars turn up.
Up until about the late 1980’s all the booking in and selling was done by hand, and some sales would not be finished until after 4.00pm. This would mean that the queue of buyers wanting to pay and pick up their goods could be long and take some time to complete the transactions.
During the early 1990’s Past Rotarian Kevin Sheean and Rotarian Geoff Janssen with help from family and friends developed a computer program that worked wonderfully well. It made it much more efficient, quicker and easier.
As you can imagine a project such as this needs the full cooperation of the whole Club to be successful, from teams of members with trucks and cars and trailers, picking up the goods, booking the items in before the sale day, and then on the day, office staff, pencillers, runners, people helping the Auctioneers by holding up or pointing out items for sale, crowd control, catering, gate attendants etc. The help from the Inner Wheel Club, past members, family members and friends all contributed to making it an annual and successful project.
We were very lucky that Rotarian Roly Hewson, since passed away, was able to put his profession and skills as an auctioneer to good use on the day and always convince a team of auctioneers to provide their services free of charge.
The final WECS was held in November 2014. Garage sales, Council Roadside collections and the fact that our area becoming more urbanised all contributed to the event’s demise.
I did manage to find some financial statements on the WECS which showed that it generated an income of $50,000.00 plus and the profits ranged from $10,000.00 to $14,000.00 for the event over a number of years in the early 1990’s and 2000’s.
For a Project to run from 1964 to 2014 totals 50 WECS over 50 years. It would well and truly make it an Iconic Project of the Rotary Club of Pakenham.
Peter van Diemen
14th August 2018