Andrew Hamilton tells us about the Outback Air Race
Posted by Paul Murray on Jul 26, 2016
Geoff Hamilton introduced our guest speaker of the day, his cousin Andrew Hamilton. He noted that they grew up together on neighbouring farms and while Geoff could build a few things … Andrew went on to build himself an airplane. Geoff said that Andrew was here to speak to the club about an outback air race that he and Fiona participated in as a fundraiser for the Flying Doctor's Service.
Andrew started his talk noting that the club was pretty hard up for speakers, but he would be glad to help out his cousin. Andrew told members that listening to Exchange students brought back memories of his time as a Rotary GSE team member with Simon Terry and Michael McCormack in 1992.
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In his second trip, Andrew was exploring places he could visit between the starting point in Esperance and the finish at Hamilton Island. He found Davenport Downs Station … the largest cattle property in Queensland and it was owned by Paraway. He was familiar with Paraway since he had been using their breed stock on his own farm.
He contacted the local Paraway manager in the Riverina and asked if he could stop in at Davenport Downs during the race for a visit. The manager agreed to arranged the visit. It turned out that all of the entrants of the race visited the site and Paraway and their owners, Maquirie Bank came to become sponsors of the race...to the tune of $50,000, which grew to a total of $165,000 in donations from affiliated companies. In total, the last race brought in over six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) for the Flying Doctor's Service.
Pat Ingram gave a vote of Thanks.
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