A brief history of Our Club

1968-1969

The presentation of the charter, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Cairns West, was held at the HOUSE ON THE HILL on the 17th of February 1968 attended by the mayor and mayoress of Cairns Colin and Phyllis Penridge and the chairman of the Mulgrave Shire, counsellor and Mrs. Alley and other civic dignitaries together with presidents and members of most Rotary clubs from north of Townsville district governor Dick Ireton and wife Ivy attended and Dick presented the charter to inaugural president Jim Lewis.

Although small in number, and being only the third club in Cairns, the members managed to donate $100 to the Subnormal Children’s Welfare Association and the NQ Society for Crippled Children. Considering that the presentation of the charter meal was $4.00 per head including wine, this represented a considerable donation. Weekly dinner meetings for the club, then part of District 255, were held at the Cannon Park Hotel Motel, Woree.

P.P. Wal Shephard took over the presidency in June 1968 and the major community project was the sponsorship of the first Cairns meals on Wheels services. Wal's secretary, John Keily, was from the Young Australia League who volunteered to prepare and supply the meals. Our donation list that year included $40.00 to the Fun in the Sun committee and $100 to support a local boxer, Robert Carney, to attend the Mexico City Olympics. The club adopted and supported, for quite a few years, a Korean child, Kim Yeung Kon, born on 27th May 1959.

1969-1970

P.P. Pat O’Conner concentrated on the continuous support for Meals on Wheels, but the main project was to provide a building for the Gordonvale Girl Guides and the club raised $1000 towards this purpose. 

1970-1971

Working bees carried over to the presidency of P.P. Bert Crawford when the project was completed. Owing to increases of costs the directors reluctantly agreed to increase the dinner fees to $1.40 per person.

1971-1972

Under P.P. Alan Thomson, this was obviously a busy year with the painting of the Edmonton CWA Club rooms, support for the Gordonvale community chest , joint committee with the Cairns Rotary Club for the inaugural RYLA seminar in Cairns and a supply of a set of indoor bowls to the Edmonton Pensioners League.

1972-1973

P.P. Bruce Gordon’s main project for this year was to organise the official opening of Farnora Home for the Aged on 8 September 1972, and the club donated $1,000 towards the home. That year also saw the club participate in the supply of labour and materials towards the Girl Guides hut at Clifton Beach and financially assist the Good Samaritan home.

1973-1974

June 1973 saw the induction of P.P. John Keilly as president. Our main fund raisers that year were Friday night snap raffles at the Cannon Park Motel and the Saturday Edmonton Raffles raising $1693 for the year. The year also saw continued support for Meals on Wheels with a $500 donation. We also supported Freedom from Hunger, The Youth Assistance Fund and Civilian Widows Association.

1974-1975

This year saw the induction of P.P. Keith Auld to the presidency, and he was supported by P.P. Brian Oneill as his secretary. We donated $200 to the Darwin cyclone appeal as well as supplying drivers for a local combined Rotary Appeal for the city. The club also raffled a colour TV and made $1,336 profit. Keiths community service Director, Kevin Bradfield, achieve a first of many 100% attendance records.

1975-1976

Keith handed over to P.P. Fred Palmer in 1975 and we assisted the Boy Scouts with repairs to their hut at Kamerunga. Beside the annual donation of the $500 to Meals on Wheels, this year the club donated $400 to the Young Australia League for kitchen improvements for preparation of meals. The club also assisted with $800 donation to the Calvary Hospital rebuild.

1976-77

PP Brian O'Neill's year saw the start of our notorious show bar. Net profit realised approximately $1050. A phone-a-thon for Meals on Wheels raised $2300 and on top of this amount a further $50 was donated. Donations were made to Farnora Home and Pyramid Retirement Village at Gordonvale.

1977-78

PP Kevin Simpson's year was highlighted by the first of the bike rallies organised on behalf of the National Heart foundation. An Anatomic Anne was supplied to the Cairns ambulance and the first jaws of life, with the assistance of the other Rotary clubs, was donated to the fire brigade. This was also the year of the start of the many bursaries to Saint Theresa’s and Hambledon school in Edmonton at the instigation of the late Tom white a tireless worker at that time for Rotary and Edmonton.

1978-79

During PP Phil Matthew's presidency, we changed our meeting place to the newly opened Balaclava hotel. We helped with the construction of the brownies hut at Edmonton and held our first of many film premieres “Death on the Nile”. Although the show bar showed a loss of $1146 owing to construction costs, we still managed to donate $520 towards Meals on Wheels.

1979-80

Phil handed over to PP Jim Kernan in June and in that year the show bar showed a profit of $4600. Our donations that year included Meals on Wheels for $1070 the mayor's Christmas appeal for $200 Woree state school a colour TV valued at $585 and the Hambledon state school a projector valued at $350.

1980-81

PP Ray Furlong (manager radio 4CA] took over the reins and 1980 was the year that the club changed its title Earlville to Cairns Earlville club. Other projects included joining with Cairns West and Cairns North to organise the first careers market which was very successful. On the Australia day weekend in 1981 we organised a Fun Fish Competition which was a huge success. In mid-May we combined with Cairns and Cairns West club with a Rotary weekend trip to Chillagoe which was enjoyed by all.

1981-82

PP Bruce Kidd’s year saw the Calanna park development commenced and as a young man Bruce Rankin was presented with a RYLA certificate as our nominee in March 1982. Bruce later became a member of our club. This was the year of the first Interclub Gun Shoot and a programme for teaching gun safety to high school students was commenced. The social scene we held a very successful ladies night on Melbourne Cup eve. President Bruce presented a check for $500 to the Christmas appeal. Michelle Trenfield our first outgoing youth exchange student left for Finland.

1982-83

Bruce handed over to PP Doug Gary in 1982 and we hosted the 15th anniversary of the club where there were 12 past presidents in attendance our money raising was made easier by the taking of $33,378 by the show bar, we continued our support for Meals on Wheels and also gave $750 to the Victorian bushfire appeal. We started work on the girl guide Hut at Park Street Bayview Heights and our first youth exchange student Marjorie Jennings arrived from the USA.

1983-84

During PP Jim Graham's year the building of the Bayview guides Hut was completed and Diane Cilento judged the playwright of the year competition which attracted many entries for the first prize of $1000. We financially supported Meals on Wheels and the Cairns special school by $2500 each. We also mixed with the greenies of Cairns and planted trees at Bayview gardens. Neil Lynch was the secretary for most of the time from 1981 to 1984.

1984-85

In June 1984 PP Don Neat was inducted as president and once again we had a busy year. PP Doug Murray organised A cyclethon during Fun-In-The-Sun which proved a great success and the first of many Rotary clocks with the four way test were presented. Our club beat Cairns West at the event packed cricket game at freshwater school. A record $900 was raised by the monthly Edmonton raffle. We received our first Japanese exchange student Keiko Morii.

1985-86

PP Ken Spain's year was the year for starting projects. We formed our first PROBUS club of Cairns North sponsored by our first young achievers project who were very involved with Operation Raleigh after years of work, formed by the Cairns Earlville Rotaract club. PP Ian Lomas finalised the white elephant auction at raintree's shopping centre much to his delight we made a profit of $336. The sale of lucky envelopes at Fun-In-The-Sun raised $1257.

1986-87

The year started off with the completion of a furniture sale at Stockland’s. PP Kevin Holmes presented the clubs first Paul Harris fellowship to Wal Shepherd- a charter member of the club. Wal was delighted. The club formed a Rotaract club which unfortunately folded after about nine months. We had a canoe trip down the Mulgrave river which was very popular as was the treasure hunt in the sand at Clifton beach. A little drama came into one of our activities when we were playing our traditional cricket challenge against West Cairns club. In an effort to intimidate the opposition one of our members hired a light plane and flour bombed the game nearly crashing in the process. The plane actually hit a big mango tree causing part of the plane to break off but managed to safely land nearby. Naturally the cricket match was abandoned. The club was also instrumental in organising PROBUS club of Cairns Trinity which came into being in October 1986.

1987-88

PP Doug Murray's year saw the club incorporated and as well as our continuous financial support on Meals on Wheels we gave Father Gordon King a donation of $750. Our club obtained its 100% commitment to the rotary worldwide polio plus appeal and as a bicentennial event hosted the Festival of the People. Our incoming student was Marcelo Utumi. Kylie Nelson returned from her trip to the USA and Kirsty McManamey started her American visit. We also sponsored our first summer science student to ANU in Canberra.

1988-89

PP Kerry Atkinson took over for a very busy year. Chris Morgan finalised the Festival of the People and showed $3500 profit. As well as local donations such as $7700 to father king and $1200 to the Cairns Youth Orchestra, polio plus, Rotary Health Foundation and projects as diverse as clean water for the Philippines and help for the east Reynolds school in the Solomons. We also painted and carpeted, compliments of Martin Lee, the youth shelter in Cominos Street.

1989-90

PP Keith Bryars was in the chair, and we donated $12,000 to Father King’s Anglican youth care to fund the drop-in centre. We also continued with a successful project visit to various members businesses. We supplied and built the picnic facilities at the royal flying doctors base and also covered the costs of the family care training centre in producing a training video.

1990-91

PP Ian Lomas had a very busy year. In youth exchange we had Natasha Fogle return from Belgium, we saw Penny Dredge and Troy Price off to Japan, and Laurie Quam arrived from the USA for one year. Out donations included $7300 to the Anglican youth centre, $1500 towards these senior citizens bus and $1678 to the Jim Lewis Garden at the Free Masons home. With PP Wal Shepherd at the helm we organised the Great Adventures Cooktown Boat Trip and apart from having a great weekend $6586 was donated to the royal flying doctor.

1991-92

PP Doug king was the president for this year and we held our first RYPEN course very successfully. Connie Hofstadter and Sachiko Komori were our incoming students while Bradley Gearn represented our club in Brazil for 12 months. The Royal Flying Doctor benefited by $7500 from the Dunk Island Trip and $1850 was donated to the Good Samaritan Nursing Home to purchase a Clevanova for the patients. We continued with the sponsorship of the Anglican Youth Care as well as donating $4850 to the burns unit at the Cairns Base Hospital and $1500 to the Woree special school education unit to help disabled students.

1992-93

PP John Migdale took the reins for our 25th anniversary year. It was fitting that this year was the appointment of the first district governor from our ranks, PDG Kevin Holmes. Major fund raising was our annual show bar, charity cruise and trailer raffle. This year was highlighted by a number of social functions including the anniversary dinner, Christmas Picnic and Hurricane Camping Weekend among others. Also, in this year the club nominated PDG Kevin Holmes for the job of district governor of our district 9550 and was accepted. Kevin Farrell followed on from PDG Sir Robert Norman which made it two DG's in a row for Cairns. It was a busy and successful year for our clubs first DG, culminating in the district conference held in Cairns Colonial Club. Many of our club members took part in organising a very successful conference with guest speakers that included Gabby hollows and Harry Butler.

1993-94

“Believe in what you do, do what you believe in” was the Rotary theme for this year. PP Gordon McAuliffe had many ideas in this year. Although affected by rain, the Big Gala Equestrian Dinner organised by PP Don Neat raised funds that went to the Fred Hollows foundation. The Cooktown Cruise raised $12,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service and a combined meeting with the Port Douglas and Mossman clubs at the Rainforest Habitat was memorable due to the flying foxes that displayed an amazing aerobatic show. This year was also the year we commenced our RSL meetings just prior to Anzac Day. Matt Kolringen was exchange student from Denmark.

1994-95

PP Peter Agar had RI President Bill Huntley and his wife Deidre visiting Cairns. “Be A Friend” was bills theme. Our club had its best friend raising effort ever. Between the boat trip the mountain bike far the trailer raffle and the show bar over $80,000 was raised. Rotary celebrated its 90th birthday and Wal Sheppard became a sapphire Paul Harris fellow. Rachel Wellard [Japan] and Wendy Kidd [Canada] were outgoing students for this year.

1995-96

After 18 years at the Balaclava Hotel the club voted overwhelmingly to move to the new Brothers Leagues Club. It was with deep regret that PP Kevin Bradfield accepted the resignation of our clubs last founding member Wal Shepherd who was retiring and moved to the Gold Coast but not before Wal raised another $12,500 by organising the Cooktown Fun Cruise. The proceeds went again to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The club manned the gates of The Garden Show helped out by all the Tropical All Breeds Horse Show in Gordonvale and Mario Calanna once again organised the school debates. Two lots of $2500 were donated to Gluyas Cancer Lodge in Townsville and the Fred Moule Cancer House in Cairns. Student Natasha Giardina went to Germany and Erica D Greysi visited us from Canada for the year.

1996-97

PP Mario Calanna’s year saw the Cairns Rotary Clubs, Cairns Base Hospital, Dr Bernays and two surgeons help 12-year-old Nguyan Hoang Lam from Vietnam whose jaw was fused due to an infection years before. He left Australia eating meat talking and laughing. Mario's main emphasis for the year was on club morale and enjoyment of Rotary. Major fundraisers for the year was the mountain bike by raising $5500. Andrew Kidd went to Argentina and who will ever forget Susanna Letho from Finland.

1997-98

This year our club was in the hands of PP Peter Underwood. His year was strong in the area of community service. The National Bowel Scan Programme came off the ground in our club thanks to PP Don Neat. Don also organised practical aid to cyclone devastated PNG. Funds were raised in the show bar. Our club assisted with the FNQ horse show, meals were prepared for street level youth support, a Christmas CD was produced and recorded with carols from local school choirs and bands, the annual RSL dinner was successful, a bar was organised for a Ball At The Tanks, the Garden Expo’s gate was also manned by us, the bar ran over the two days and another food and drink kiosk was run in late June 98 for the FNQ Horse Show. Phil Dempster became group 5 first Assistant District Governor. Emily Pike went to France and Giannina Huth was in Argentina. Stinne Dyrbye by visited us from Denmark.

1998-99

PP John McCarthy had a successful year with many smaller projects. Especially the junior speaking contest and the senior debating contests that are now well entrenched in Cairns school life. It is a project without major costs but with a great benefit. The Black Fellow Creek Fitness Trail was designed and with council approval was ready for implementation in the following year. At the request of PP Phil Matthews a $4450 heart monitor was purchased for the Cairns Base Hospital. PP Peter Underwood took up his role as district chairman youth. Celine Regout was in Cairns from Belgium. Tom Jones [Japan] and Heidi downs [France] departed.

1999-2000

PP Graham Hepburn was the president keeping our club well clear from the Y2K an GST pitfalls. Better still the club appeared to have spread its wings with sound involvement of numerous members in zone and district positions. The club was awarded a presidential citation for our efforts in all four avenues of service and achieve consistently very high attendance levels at the weekly meetings. Our club provided vital support to the revitalization of the Rotaract club. The show bar showed a profit of $7100. The trailer raffle showed a profit of $9100. There were 750 bowel scan kits sold. Donations totalling $13,300 were made. Our club was awarded the district trophy for having the most partners at a session at the Port Douglas conference. Claire Edwards the first English exchange student to district 9550 was the incoming student for the year.

2000-01

Into the new Millennium with PP Neil lynch installed as our president, RI president Frank Devlin urged us to “Take Action, Create Awareness”. We were invited to increase our membership due to declining trends and we responded with an increase from 34 to 39 with a distinction of inducting our first female member Meg O’Neill, classification barrister.

A think-tank was organised by Colin Meservy for all members at the start of the year and was held to guide us with vision into the year and setting our goals and objectives for the long-term future. Activities of the club included, the running of the Show Bar, Trailer Raffle, Bowel Scan, Clean Up Australia Day, and the first organising of the Reef Festival Bar, thanks to Peter Underwood raising $3000. Celine DeBruyn a Belgium exchange student returned home five weeks after arrival due to insurmountable homesickness. Myuse Nyoni from Zimbabwe took her place. Our club continued its involvement at district level with seven members in district and group 5 positions. The club received a presidential citation for achieving goals set out by RI Kevin Wearing completing his third year as treasurer and still has not had enough. The otherwise very successful year ended unfortunately with the resignation of Meg O’Neil who moved to Brisbane and the unexpected passing of Graham Bourn who had joined our club only a few months earlier.

2001-02

Maarten Buijs, was president of our club during this Rotary year. RI president Richard King's motto for the year was “Mankind Is Our Business”. A worldwide membership decline was taken on by the RI president by means of his global quest urging all clubs to induct one new member each month aiming at a net gain of five members for the club. Our club inducted 10 new members during Martins year seven male and three female. One member resigned. The club continued to have significant representation on the district committees, including Bruce Kidd as a DG and Phil Dempster as district chairman for the Rotary Foundation. President Maarten himself continued as district YEP role as group 5 Rep. Newly inducted PDG ( D9630 ) Darryl Martin prepared himself to take on several district functions for the 2002-2003 year. Myuse Nyoni from Zimbabwe completed her very successful exchange in February. The subsequent exchange with Peru did not eventuate, with Dayana becoming ill and Ana getting cold feet prior to departure to Cairns. The club continued its regular annual sequence of activities. Two important elements in the club's objectives for the year where the development and adoption of a Club Development Plan and a Fund Raising and Expenditure Policy. Significant progress was made providing incoming president with a sound base for further club development and growth.

2002-03

PP Peter Handley led the club this year and followed RI president Bhichai Rattakul with a motto of “Sow the Seeds of Love” by working hard in the community to improve and strengthen our community. The club development plan so ably developed last year by PP Maarten was implemented with membership again being the key issue. The club achieved its objective of membership of 50 by the end of the year. Our exchange for this year was Mikhail Garcia from Texas USA who was a very keen contributor to any activity he could get into. He composed a piece for the Cairns Brass Band and had the world premiere of his piece had the Cairns Civic Theatre. The district conference was held in Cairns this year and our members contributed strongly to its success. The club enjoyed an interesting and stimulating social and business programme with the trailer raffle, bowel scan and Street level youth care projects again being successful. A night at the theatre to see “Death and The Maiden” was both enjoyable and profitable with $580 being raised for the polio or ratification project polio eradication project. Again, the club contributed strongly to the district by having ten members hold district officers' positions.

2003-04

This was a year which took us back to basics led by PP Colin Meservy. Rotary international president Jonathan Majiyagbe of Nigeria adopted the motto of “Lend A Hand”. This simple statement epitomises what Rotary is about. 

Our club members rose to the task by approving and solidly backing the board's ambitious plan to commit approximately $80,000 to a Rotary Centennial project to purchase two buses for the renal dialysis unit in the Cairns base hospital for completion by June 2005. To fund this the club undertook an active programme of seeking corporate sponsors to raise $13,000 in 2004 with another $8000 committed over the next five years making a total of $21,000 raised from corporate partners. We also approached the building industry seeking sponsors and donors to help build a house to be auctioned with the proceeds to be available for the Centennial project. The industry responded enthusiastically and the funds to be raised could exceed our initial expectations. Cairns Mulgrave Rotary Club also came on board as a co-sponsor of our Centennial project. We also continued regular fund raising with the show bar raising a net of $6999 and the trailer raffle raising a net of $6712.00. Membership grew to 54 including seven women and we hosted two delightful youth exchange students Minako Nakamura from Japan and Axel Rose from France. The public speaking and high school debating continued to grow from strength to strength thanks to Mario Calanna’s continued dedication and enthusiasm.

In 2010, the club changed its name to Cairns Southside.

In 2017, there was a merging of three clubs, Cairns Southside, Mulgrave, and Cairns North to become Cairns Trinity.