Another Successful Wool Show and Auction
Sunday 11th May 2008

For a small group of Tintinara Lions Club members, led by Malcom Kennett, Mother's Day this year started early on a foggy football oval booking in entries for the Club's highly successful annual auction. The auction was again combined with the Lions wool show and competition, which is said to be the second largest in the state.

By the end of the morning, over 550 auction entries had been registered, including nine cars and utes, two motorbikes, several trailer loads of firewood, many workshop, hardware, and farm items, a large range of furniture, and several small boxes of toys and household items.

About 70 fleeces were donated by local growers for the wool show. At midday, Tom Ferguson, this year's wool show and auction coordinator, introduced the show's judge, Steve Davidson, Elders-Keith District Wool Manager, to the crowd that had collected to view the exhibits. Steve congratulated all exhibitors, and commended them on the quality of their fleeces despite the preceding year's poor wool growing conditions. He singled out the hoggett fleeces as being especially good.

Steve awarded Brett Meyer (pictured right) with the Lions Perpetual Trophy for Champion Fleece, for his 18.4 micron exhibit weighing in at 8 kg. Other prizes went to the McKenzies for the best commercial ewe fleece (19.5 micron weighing 9.1 kg), to the Fergusons for the best commercial hoggett fleece (17.1 micron weighing 6.5 kg), and to Kyara Poll for champion ram fleece (24 micron weighing a hefty 14.4 kg).

Morning fog turned to overcast skies, and then to a splendid sunny afternoon for the second attraction of the day. About 300 people, including 112 registered bidders, followed auctioneers Brenton Jones and John Groutch as they worked their way through the many lines of entries. Firewood sold particularly well, with bidding topping at $140 for one ute and trailer load. Brenton struggled to sell some of the cars. About half were passed in below their reserve price, although some locals did pick up a few bargains. Some of the better quality furniture was well sought after, generally selling for around $100, and small boxes of toys sold for around $5 and more.

By the end of the day, Deb Jones and Olive Judd in their makeshift office in the Footbal Club recorded gross auction takings of just under $11,000. About $1,100 of this was commission and donations, which will go to Lions Club funds for later distribution to mainly local and some national deserving causes.


While the auction was proceeding, the Lions caravan crew of Peter Zacker, Malcolm Becker, Ralph Zacker and Jim Cunningham cooked and served many buckets of chips and hundreds of doughnuts to hungry buyers. Caravan sales exceeded $1,100, and net proceeds will also be distributed to local and national causes.

By dusk, and at the end of a very long day for many Tintinara Lions, about 515 kg of fleeces had been pressed into bales for subsequent sale, with proceeds also going to Lions funds.

Lions President Keith Harkness declared the event another major success for the Club, and thanked the more than 20 Club members who had been very active in helping during the day.

Frank Burden


About the club

The Tintinara Lions Club was formed in 1976 to serve the Tintinara and local communities. Fund-raising activities include supplying firewood to the local community, collection of newspapers, empty cans and bottles for recycling, catering at local events, sale of Lions Mints and Christmas Cakes, and running the very popular annual Lions Auction and Wool Show.

Over the past four years, the Tintinara Lions Club made donations of about $30,000 to local and national causes.