SERVICE CLUBS

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (15:31): Next week is Service Club Week. The dates are 21 to 26 October. It is an opportunity for the community to acknowledge and celebrate the work undertaken by service clubs in our local communities. Next Monday, the Association of Community Service Organisations (ACSO) will host their annual Premier's Service Club Award which will be held at a dinner at the Glenelg Golf Club. The awards, which are funded by the state government through the Premier, recognise the outstanding contribution made by either an individual or a community service organisation to the community itself. The Premier's Distinction Award is the premier prize and is awarded for an outstanding project involving one or more service clubs. I am proud to say I will representing both the Premier and the Minister for Volunteers at that event.

On Tuesday night the Hon. Ian Hunter, Minister for Volunteers, and I hosted a function for the 2012 Primary School Service Club Awards. The awards recognise an outstanding contribution made by school groups. Nominations this year included the Mount Barker Primary School, Victor Harbor High School, Brighton Primary School, Modbury High School and Greenock Primary School, with Mount Barker Primary School winning the award for its breakfast program. The program is supported by the Kiwanis Club of the Adelaide Hills. Modbury High School was the runner up. I congratulate ACSO under the leadership of Harry Tillyer for organising the event this week and also to recognise the contribution made by young people in our community.

Closer to home, next week I am hosting a forum involving the Gawler based service clubs. The clubs include the Lions Club of Gawler, the Kiwanis Club of Gawler, the Roseworthy-Hewett Kiwanis Club, the Zonta Club of Gawler, the Gawler View Club, the local Freemasons Lodge (I think it is the Lodge of Fidelity No. 5), the Rotary Club of Gawler Light, the Gawler Rotary Club, the Apex Club of Gawler and the Country Womens' Association (Gawler branch).

Mrs Vlahos: Not the Virginia branch.

Mr PICCOLO: No, not the Virginia branch, the Gawler branch; that is correct. The clubs and I are discussing how the clubs can work together to support our young people in the community. The service clubs already run a number of projects and activities for young people in the community. They organise exchange programs, they provide public speaking competitions. For example, the Kiwanis Club runs the terrific kids program amongst others. Also, the Zonta Club supports scholarships for young women.

By working together the clubs seek to pool their limited resources and to give young people in our community a step up. One of the other things we will also be discussing at this forum next week is how we can work together to support our emerging young leaders in the community and how service clubs can work together and also engage young people in community and voluntary work. There will be a presentation by a small group of people from the minister's advisory group for volunteering. They will come to Gawler to talk about how young people prefer to volunteer these days and how we can engage young people.

To put the work of our service clubs into context, I took a survey of the service clubs in Gawler and they raise about $150,000 a year for community projects. In addition to the $150,000 they raise, they support community events and provide funds for a number of local charities and a number of local, state and international events. For example, the service clubs support our annual show and a whole range of other activities. Without the contributions made by service club members we would be a much poorer community.

Next week is an opportunity for the community as a whole to celebrate the achievements of our service clubs, to honour their contributions and to also encourage more people perhaps to become service club members. I should declare for the record that I am actually a member of the Lions Club of Gawler but, having said that, I enjoy working with all the service clubs in Gawler and throughout my whole electorate. When you look around the town, the number of projects that have been either initiated or undertaken by the service clubs is enormous. The town itself would be much poorer without the work of the service clubs.