FOUNDED in 1966, the Kalamunda Lapidary Club is celebrating six decades of cutting and polishing stones, minerals and gemstones into decorative items.

Club president Danny McManus said this was a big achievement for all the members.

“We’ve been here for 60 years, so it’s quite a milestone for us,” he said.

“It’s good to know that we managed to keep the club alive all that time.”

To celebrate, the club will create a special showcase at its annual exhibition.

“Our exhibition in September is held over a weekend, where people come to look at our work, buy rocks and admire what we do, so we’re planning to try and showcase some of our past history then,” Mr McManus said.

“We’ve got a five-head stamp mill copy that was made way back in the 70s for a Perth mining exhibition. We’ve had it in storage for a long time, so we are getting it refurbished now.

“Also, in the 70s, we did a display at the Old Mill in South Perth, and we’ve still got some of those items, which we’ll put together again so we can show people what we did back in the earlier days of our club.”

Mr McManus said the club had many achievements throughout the years.

“A few of our members used to show their stuff at the Perth Royal Show and many of them won prizes and competitions,” he said.

“We also used to have a jamboree, which was an Australia-wide gathering of all lapidary clubs. It used to happen in Western Australia every so often, and we won the top club in Australia back in the 70s.”

The club now has between 60 to 70 members, who frequent the clubroom throughout the week at Kostera Reserve.

“On Tuesday, we do silversmithing, where I teach people to make silver jewellery, and on Wednesday, it’s the rock room day, where people make cabochons (polished gemstones) and other things – some people are making chess boards and different items out of our stones,” Mr McManus said.

“And then Thursday night, we have an open night for people to come in after work from 7pm to 10pm, and Saturday we’re open from 10am to 4pm.”

Vice-president Joe Houldsworth said anyone is free to join the club.

“We’ve got a lot of younger members coming through. I don’t know why, but we’re very pleased,” he said.

“In this day and age, a lot of clubs and organisations have difficulty attracting new and younger members, but for some reason, we have been able to attract different age groups.

“There are people that live quite close and are totally unaware of the club. And yet, we have members that come from far and wide and travel an awful lot, while some locals are oblivious to it.”

Mr McManus hopes more young people continue to be interested in the club.

“The main hope is that the club attracts a lot more young members who can take over because some of our members are getting old,” he said.

“Quite a few of our members are in their late 60s and up to their 80s, so we want young people who can take an interest, carry the flag and keep going with the fun of lapidary.”