We continued our Centenary celebrations on Sunday 4 August, when around seventy past and present members and visitors re-enacted the Club’s first excursion, which was held at Leighton Beach on 26 July 1924 – after a storm washed lots of items onto the shore a few days before.
The venue for the event was the Fremantle Surf Life Saving Club. Our room, with panoramic windows that looked out onto Leighton Beach and the ocean, was the ideal meeting place for attendees to chat and watch a PowerPoint presentation of past excursions while enjoying morning tea.
The organisers had also arranged two static displays, one depicting previous beach sweep events, the other outlining the history of Club excursions through the decades, with the oldest photos, from Joy Harnett’s collection, going back as far as 1950.
The photos depicted excursions of the juniors and to interstate and overseas destinations, as well as local excursions and the many Easter and Late Easter camps.
Prior to heading to the beach, Don Poynton welcomed everyone and noted the similarity with the first excursion – a storm the previous Wednesday, and a beautiful sunny day for the centenary walk.
He then acknowledged and welcomed the eight descendants of Ludwig Glauert, the leader of the first excursion.
Don then invited the audience to participate in a poll to see when those present attended their first excursion. By announcing the decades going back in time, the show of hands quickly dwindled until only two remained. To great applause we congratulated Don Howe and John Dyball, who attended their first excursions in the 1940s! Both Don and John were also Presidents of the Junior Naturalists.
As Dr Lisa Kirkendale, Head of Aquatic Zoology at the WA Museum, was unable to attend as planned, Don invited the six female descendants of Ludwig Glauert – two granddaughters, three great granddaughters and a great-great granddaughter – to lead everyone to the beach, where our guides, Jolanda Keeble, Diana Papenfus, Mike Gregson and Don Poynton each took a group along the beach where they collected specimens for later identification (below – members and visitors with specimens collected).
Upon returning to the surf club, all the specimens were sorted and laid out by taxonomic Family. The guides and Daniel Heald (right) then gave short talks on some of the more interesting finds, before Daniel took on the task of photographing all the specimens. He later posted the photos on the iNaturalist app.
It was great to see about 20 people had dressed in period costume and to conclude the event, Arlene Quinn awarded prizes to Claudia Mueller (below, centre with red scarf) for best dressed woman, and Daniel Heald (centre back row) for best dressed man.
Don Poynton