It is with the greatest regret that I announce that the Kangaroo Valley VIEW Club decided to close down at the AGM in March 2024. Committee members wished to retire and there were no women willing and able to form a new committee so we could not see a way forward.
Natural attrition has reduced our membership numbers; some members have grown older and moved away and sadly three of our members have recently passed away. Additionally, the bushfires and the 2022 rains severely affected our members’ commute. Another big problem was the effect COVID-19 had on our ability to function. Apart from lockdowns, there was a feeling of fear about coming together – thankfully this feeling has now passed.
A little bit of our history: in the 36 to 37 years that the club existed, it was sustained by members who were all volunteers. The world is changing and volunteering is changing, as women now have much busier lives. The club was formed for women whose lives have now changed a lot, I would think for the better, and fundraising methods have changed.
In the 1980s, a group of young women decided that they would like to form a VIEW Club in Kangaroo Valley. VIEW Clubs raise funds for The Smith Family charity. The clubs exist all over Australia in towns and suburbs. The Smith Family charity began many years ago with the aim of looking after the welfare of the community. It switched to raising money to help with children’s education because it saw a need for children to be given extra financial help with school expenses, leading to positive outcomes in their lives.
It was quite a lengthy process to convince the Smith Family that Kangaroo Valley was big enough to have a club. By 1987 the club was officially opened.
The aim of each club is not only to raise money but also to promote the ideas of providing a Voice for women, Education of women, Interests of Women, hence the word VIEW.
Each club is run by a committee, which has nine positions to be filled. There are two meetings a month: the committee meeting and then a luncheon meeting for committee and members. The meetings are run in a traditional manner with two sets of minutes required to be prepared each month. The treasurer reports to The Smith Family and all money raised goes to The Smith Family. The money left in our bank now will go to support our student for 2024 (each year each a club nominates how many children they can support – we were supporting one child).
Over time we held our lunches in many venues: the Friendly Inn, the KV Bowling Club, the restaurant at Hampden Bridge (under two different owners), Bistro 146, the KV Golf Club, Maddisons and Farmgate in Nowra. In later years, we struggled to find a venue in the valley suitable for a lunch and a guest speaker.
A guest speaker is invited to speak at the luncheon meeting as part of the education aspect of VIEW. Over the years Kangaroo Valley has attracted many interesting speakers from within the valley as well as from outside. Many locals have memories of being invited to speak.
The KV VIEW club luncheon meeting notice first started appearing in the Nowra papers. When the Valley Voice commenced publication in 1995, the notice was put in the Voice. When I took over the Publicity Officer position in about 2012 (whose job it was to put our meeting notice in the Voice), our speaker was a snake catcher from Nowra. I thought it would be a good idea to share the information about snakes with the readers of the Voice. I continued to share information from our speakers until our last speaker last year Senior Constable Todd Cremer. Looking back to June 2015, I can see that we had representatives from the Kangaroo Valley Rural Fire Service giving us very good advice on how to make a fire plan to prepare ourselves and our properties for bushfires. I am sure we all learned a lot from all our speakers and are grateful they took the time to share their knowledge with us.
We raised funds by holding group outings, special events and events at members’ homes and gardens. Many friendships were formed and we always enjoyed getting together.
If one were to study a list of members from 1987, you would see names of the long-time resident families of Kangaroo Valley and the names of many women who moved to the valley and who all contributed in different and wonderful ways to the life of the valley and our VIEW club.
All in all, a wonderful experience for me meeting the women of Kangaroo Valley,
Jeannette Dumbrell
