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- 18 June 2002
Parliamentary Lions Club Charter Presentation Dinner
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Page: 3219
The Hon. HELEN SHAM-HO [9.24 p.m.]: I am delighted to inform the House of the success of the New South Wales Parliamentary Lions Club Charter Presentation Dinner last night at Parliament House. I say at the outset that the support that our club received from so many people from different sectors was absolutely overwhelming. The dining room last night was filled to capacity with well over 400 people. Tickets sold out long before the event and large numbers of people had to be turned away. As honourable members may know, the dinner was an historic occasion with the club officially becoming the first State parliamentary Lions Club in Australia. During the charter presentation ceremony, which was conducted by Lions Clubs International, the club was presented with its charter certificate and each charter member in attendance received a charter membership certificate. The names of all 27 charter members, which included 22 serving members of Parliament, one former member, the Premier, the Opposition leader, the Speaker and the President as honorary members, are featured on the charter certificate. A framed copy of the club's charter will be displayed in Parliament House by permission of the Speaker.
Honourable members may also recall that the club unanimously decided at its formation meeting to conduct the charter night as a fundraiser for the Ted Noffs Foundation and the Sir David Martin Foundation. I am pleased to announce that, after ticket sales, donations and sponsorships as well as last night's impressive charity auction and raffle, the club raised well over $80,000. Frank Chou from the Teo Chew Association and C. K. Chan from the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China bid $8,888 for an Olympic torch, which was the second highest bid. The highest bid was $9,000 for the Qantas ticket, which was bought by Mr Lim. After expenses, the amount raised will be split between the two charity foundations, which are desperately in need of financial support. Like many charities, the Ted Noffs Foundation and the Sir David Martin Foundation rely upon donations in order to fund much of their work. But at this stage of the electoral cycle, about nine months from the next State election, the majority of fundraisers will be directed at raising money for political campaigns. It is extremely difficult for charities to compete with this, which is why the fundraiser coincided with our charter night.
As I mentioned earlier, our club is quite special, being the first of its kind to be formed in Australia. But there are many other factors that make our club unique. To give one example, we do not hold monthly meetings as other Lions clubs do. Since the formation of the club many charter members have commented to me that they had wanted to join Lions for a while but felt that they did not have time to attend meetings. Knowing that members of Parliament are always so pressed for time, our club decided to meet formally only four times each year, with business conducted through fax and email. This system has worked quite well so far. In fact, we organised our entire charter night without having to meet once. After our formation meeting no meeting whatsoever has been held. Another very distinct thing about our club is that it has cross-party support.
I am delighted that I can say that members of the Australian Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the National Party, the Australian Democrats and Independents have become charter members of the club. In my 14 years as a parliamentarian I have not on many occasions seen so many members of Parliament from the major and minor parties, from both Houses of Parliament, Ministers and shadow Ministers, band together as they did last night in a big community function in support of a common cause. It was great. The evening was quite extraordinary and memorable in that sense. As well as the charter members of our club, guests at the dinner included representatives from Lions clubs across Sydney and even the Australian Capital Territory—supporters of the two foundations—and business and community groups. The Speaker, the Premier's representative, the Hon. Carmel Tebbutt, and two shadow Ministers, the Hon. Patricia Forsythe and Mrs Jillian Skinner, also came along as invited guests. I was a little disappointed that the Leader of the Opposition, John Brogden, withdrew his acceptance and did not attend. I thank the members who attended for their company last night.
Before I conclude I take the opportunity to thank some of the people who helped to make our club's inaugural charter night a great success. I appreciate the guidance and assistance of our sponsoring club, the Kellyville Lions Club. I acknowledge the support of our major sponsor, HSBC, in providing a $10,000 sponsorship. Other sponsors included Star City and the Club Managers Association. My appreciation also goes to our performers Barry Crocker and Ms Faye Hung. A major contributor was Qantas airlines. I am also grateful to Alex and Nancy Ma of 1A Communication, who took care of all our printing needs. I also thank Mr Eric Tam of AEF Trading Pty Ltd, who generously donated more than 400 photo frames so that our guests could have a memento to go home with and so that members of Parliament could frame their charter membership certificates. I must also thank my husband and my two staff, who worked so hard on this occasion. [Time expired.]
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