Community
25 March, 2026
Shaking the tins one last time
QUOTA Friends of Rotary are stepping down from organising the Good Friday Appeal, with this year being their last turn shaking the tins for a good cause.
Member Fran Warden said this was either the 27th or 28th year of Quota organising the appeal but it was time to step back and let Cobden Rotary take over.
“We’ve only got six members left, might be seven of us, and there’s only two that are not in their eighties,” she said.
“I can only manage to do what I do with the help of my daughter and she’s recently gotten more responsibility at work so she’s not able to help me as much as she once did.
“None of the others were interested in taking on the organising role of it so we were very fortunate that Rotary has come forward and they’re going to take it over.
“They’ll do a really good job of it.”
Mrs Warden said it was seeing the work of doctors and nurses when one of her premature twin daughters was in hospital which made her extra appreciative of the work the Royal Children’s Hospital does.
“I’ve got premature twin babies, and one of them spent six weeks at Baxter House in Geelong,” she said.
“She didn’t actually go to the Royal Children’s Hospital, because back in those days the ambulance set up at the Royal Children’s Hospital wasn’t super brilliant – it could sit there for up to several hours before they were unloaded.
“Going down and seeing her while she was down in hospital, I saw the work that the nurses and the doctors did down there and when we got the opportunity to do the Royal Children’s Hospital Appeal I was all for it.
“Apex had been doing it up until then and I was Quota president when the Apex boys approached us and asked us to take it over.
“It doesn’t seem like 27 years ago. A lot of things have happened in that time.”
The first year the Quota club ran the Good Friday Appeal, the members raised around $6500, which Mrs Warden said they thought was “absolutely wonderful”.
“Whereas now, the best year we’ve had we’ve gotten about $16,000 or $17,000,” she said.
Mrs Warden said it was the support of the community which kept the Good Friday Appeal running so successfully in Cobden.
“We only organise it – nearly every shop in the town supports us with a tin that they have in their shop for the whole 12 months,” she said.
“The Cobden Golf Club is a very big supporter of the Royal Children’s Hospital and we get thousands of dollars from them every year.
“We’ve got a girl who hasn’t lived in Cobden for many years but she comes back for every Good Friday and she collects from the roundabout at the Neylon Street intersection.
“She brings in $2000 or $3000 every Good Friday.
“It’s all the kids over all those years that have gone and knocked on doors and mums and dads that have gone with them – if it hadn’t been for them, it wouldn’t have existed.”
Mrs Warden said the Quota Friends of Rotary collection team were on the lookout for door knockers to support the Good Friday Appeal next week.
“We would love volunteers and door knockers on collection day – the last couple of years we haven’t had lots of door knockers and we haven’t been able to cover the whole of the town,” she said.
“Last year we were very short of collectors and one family went out three times.
“If it wasn’t for people like that, the whole show wouldn’t exist.”
When it came time for donating to the Good Friday Appeal, Mrs Warden said any amount counted and made a difference.
“Thank you to everyone over the years that has supported the cause,” she said.
“Even if you’ve only got a couple of dollars, it all adds up, you don’t have to have $100 or anything, even just a couple of dollars or a few silver coins even, it all adds up at the end of the day.
“I’ll still go down on Good Friday and help count the money and all that, I just won’t have the responsibility of setting up and the paperwork afterwards and that sort of thing.
“I’m not going to ditch it all together – I’m still going to be involved in it and I think the other Quota girls will too.
“I know Rotary will do a really good job of it all the projects they take on they don’t do unless they’re prepared to do it properly.”
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