Margie Maccoll
Tewantin-Noosa RSL sub-branch will again host ANZAC Day services this year beginning with a dawn service at the Tewantin cenotaph at 5.30am, cemetery service at Tewantin cemetery at 6.30am and ANZAC Day parade and commemoration service at Tewantin cenotaph at 9.30am.
Due to an ongoing dispute between the sub-branch and the Tewantin Noosa RSL Club, this year the sub-branch has secured an ANZAC Day liquor license for the Royal Mail Hotel and organised with the hotel for all other traditionally-held veteran events to occur there.
The gunfire breakfast at 6am at the Royal Mail Hotel will follow the dawn service, the official sub-branch Two-Up will be held from 11am-3pm at the hotel and the official commemorative lunch for veterans and their families will be held from 11.30am.
“It’s going to be a good one,” sub-branch vice-president Michael Byrne said of the event.
“The support has been phenomenal. Fundraising raffles have been outstanding.”
Sub-branch secretary Kelli Ware said the sub-branch had been fundraising mostly through raffles for “quite a while” to cover costs to conduct the Anzac Day ceremony and subsidise lunches for about 150 of the club’s more than 470 veterans.
She said in previous years the dawn service had attracted about 2000 people and the parade and service more than 5000 people and the sub-branch expects even bigger crowds this year.
In addition to veterans the parade will be well represented by members of the community including local school children, the Tewantin-Noosa Women’s Auxiliary, the Noosa Pipes and Drums Band and members of the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
The sub branch invites the community to join them to pay tribute to all who have bravely served the nation, to honour the ANZACs and all who followed their example.
The Tewantin Sub-Branch of the RSL was formed in 1920 with the original RSL Memorial Hall, formally the School of Arts. After the hall was destroyed by fire in 1967 a new hall was built and opened in 1970, followed by the official opening by the then Queensland Governor, Sir Alan Mansfield. Located where the current sub branch office is on the corner of Memorial and Poinciana Avenue, extensions were completed in 1979 incorporating the area known as Diggers Bar. The club was officially opened in 1981.
Mr Byrne said the sub branch did not want the dispute between the sub-branch and the Tewantin Noosa RSL Club to overshadow the ANZAC Day event.
The RSL sub branch-owned Diggers bar which is leased to the club until 27 April is currently closed and its future is under negotiation, he said.
