December 2002 Volume 83 Number 12 "serving the protectors"
Detectives pitch in for Bali victims
By Brett Williams

An auction staged by members of the Holden Hill CIB has raised almost $3,000 for Australian victims of the Bali bombings.

A group of officers led by Detective Mark Shaw held the fundraiser with the support of local business operators, who donated goods and services for sale.

Detective Shaw had moved to organize the event after he and his work partner, Tracy Hender, watched the Channel 7 programme, Australians Unite, during a meal break on October 20.

“The programme was quite emotional,” he said. “I felt a bit of a lump in the throat as I watched it, and I said to Tracy: ‘Surely there’s something we can do’.”

Detective Shaw secured a venue – the Delta Social & Sports Club – and scheduled the auction for the next police payday, October 30. He urged his colleagues throughout the CIB to “rustle up some donations” but, at the outset, expected to raise only about $500.

Within two days, a brewing company and a hotel had donated two kegs of beer worth a return of about $700. And Detective Shaw found himself inundated with donation offers from the business community.

With a raft of items that included football memorabilia, accommodation packages, furniture and a signed Kasey Chambers CD, the event began at 3:30pm on the scheduled day.

“Probably at 3 o’clock that day I thought: ‘Am I going to get 15 people, or am I going to get 50’,” Detective Shaw said. “At the normal show you have over there (at the club), you don’t get too many.

“But, in the blink of an eye, it was 5 o’clock and you couldn’t move in there. That’s when I thought: ‘We’re on a winner’.”

Before a crowd of about 60 police, Detective Fred Van der Stelt conducted the auction for three-and-half hours from 5pm, while organizers raffled other donations through to around midnight.

The highest price fetched at the auction was $360 for a hotel accommodation package. A close second was $350 for a Norwood Team of the Century print.

“With the auction, raffles, bar sales and a barbecue, we raised $2,876,” Detective Shaw said. “That’s about $2,000 more than I thought we’d get. We didn’t reach 100 per cent of the LSA because it was short notice, so I was really happy with the turnout.”

Detective Shaw said the turnout and enthusiastic bidding had shown the degree to which all his colleagues had felt the Bali tragedy.

He also paid tribute to his fellow volunteers, Detectives Antony Wooley, David Brock, Fred Van der Stelt, Tracy Hender and Phil Linton. He said all their “running around” to organize the event had proved worthwhile.

Plans are under way for the officers involved in the fundraiser to hand over a cheque for the amount raised to the Red Cross through the Australians Unite appeal.

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