THE Inner Wheel Club of Kalamunda celebrated its 60th birthday recently with a lunch at the Kalamunda Hotel.

At the lunch, IWA President Clare Swaan presented Club President Linley Smith with a framed Certificate of Achievement celebrating 60 years of friendship and service.

Also present at the lunch were District Chairman Coralie Deshon, accompanied by her husband Fred, the Mayor of Kalamunda Margaret Thomas, and the club’s longest serving member, Rona Hurley.

At its inception in 1965, the Kalamunda Rotary Club was presented with an official collar and jewel to be worn by every club president.

Over the years, the name of each president was engraved onto a bar and then attached to the collar.

As part of the 50th birthday celebrations 10 years ago, National President Kay Morland presented the club with a new collar.

The old collar and jewel were then framed and presented to the History Village in Kalamunda.

Since 1965, the Kalamunda club has gone from strength to strength, raising money for many organisations including Silver Chain, the Kalamunda Bush Fire Brigade, Parkerville Youth and Kalamunda Hospital.

In recent years, the club has also raised money for the Midland Women’s Refuge by holding a raffle at the Kalamunda Markets and held a special afternoon tea to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders.

Originally formed as a friendship group for the wives of Rotary Club members, Inner Wheel is a voluntary worldwide women’s service organisation with more than 100 clubs in Australia and nearly 2500 members nationally.

The first Inner Wheel interest meeting was held in Ballarat, Victoria in 1931, closely followed by North Sydney, NSW.

These were the first Inner Wheel Clubs to be chartered outside the UK and after many enquiries from Rotary Clubs around Australia, Inner Wheel soon spread to all States.