Helipad Fundraiser a Success at Clare

Thursday, 27 March 2003 00:00
The Clare Valley Race Club and the local community recently joined forces to launch a fundraiser to raise revenues to construct a helipad at The Clare Hospital. At present the emergency helicopter to have a medivac from Clare cannot land at the hospital but at the local town oval 1km away.

This extra movement of the patient is obviously life threatening and with 3 local fatalities in the last 3 months the awareness of the project is high therefore the fundraiser has the full support of the local media, service groups, Council and small business.

To assist with the project The Clare Valley Race Club conducted the fundraiser evening on the night prior to its Sunday Race Meeting on March 16th 2003. The evening featured The 5AA Allstars, Terry McAuliffe as MC, guest speakers Derrick McManus, John Letts and Dr Bill Griggs plus VIPs including the Mayor and Council CEO. The event was a sell out with over 300 crammed into The Town Hall and with a waiting list of 70 very disappointed people.

The major sponsor of the fundraiser and the race day was Clare Valley Toyota with tremendous support from local wineries with over 100 bottles of premium wine donated for sale on the night.

The night raised over $11,000 for the Helipad project and a great time was had by all. The only down side to the promotion was the disappointment from the much larger than normal crowd who had all followed the tipping of The Punters Pal from the previous night John Letts where he declared Billy Rascal would win. The announcement on course by Terry McAuliffe that Lettsy would pay out all losing bets in stall 30 did not help the popular trainer at all.

Media Release - Jason Hickson (TRSA)