A Remembrance Day of Sunshine and Reflection

---- We open most Fridays from 5 pm. Meals on the first Friday of the month however, The Hut access has been suspended until further notice due to construction works ---- 

Remembrance Day turned out to be warm and sunny - perfect for our outdoor commemorative service. It was also a great relief following weeks of intermittent rain.

Although the attendance was what I would call 'moderate', Friday of course is a workday, so many people who may have attended on a weekend weren't available at 10:30 am when our commemorative service commenced. A few people turned up shortly before 11 am.

Priest and currently serving Army chaplain, Mark Sexton again did an excellent job throwing in a couple of anecdotes based on military service. Our President, Trevor Klose was the Master of Ceremonies and similarly did a respectable job taking attendees through the order of service.

Several wreaths were laid and all of us who attended had time to reflect on those who served and made the ultimate sacrifice and thousands of others whose service we honour, including those now in the Australian Defence Force.

Preparing for ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day begins a few months ahead of the scheduled events and requires quite a lot of work from committee members. 

Close to the events, we're fortunate and most appreciative to have the help of Faith Lutheran College students to install our crosses. Each cross bears the name of one of our fellow Australians who died in service to our country and is placed in alphabetical order according to the theatre of war in which they served.

The photo above shows several students and their teacher supervised by our member Neville Jaeschke who volunteers to do this job twice per year. The teacher told us these year-eleven students are going to be college leaders in their final year at the college.

The finished job looks very impressive as you can see in this photograph.

In previous years we have invited people to have lunch at our Hut following the service but unfortunately, due to the construction work currently being undertaken in the Tanunda Recreation Park, it wasn't possible to do so this year.

By ANZAC Day 2023 we expect the construction work to have been completed and we'll be back to normal.

Lest We Forget

 "They shall grow not old,

as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them,

nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun

and in the morning

We will remember them."

The Ode of Remembrance has been recited to commemorate wartime service and sacrifice since 1921.

The Ode is the 4th stanza of the poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon. The poem was first published in the British newspaper The Times on 21 September 1914. The poem later appeared in many anthologies of war verse.

In 1919, Binyon’s poem was selected to accompany the unveiling of the London Cenotaph and was adopted as a memorial tradition by many Commonwealth nations. The poem was read at the laying of the Inauguration Stone at the Australian War Memorial in 1929.

Acknowledgement: The Department of Veterans Affairs.