At our meeting on July 13th, we had the pleasure of hearing from one of our Club members, Craig Lunn. Craig who has been a member of our Club since 2013, started by talking about his journey to Cromwell from Invercargill where he grew up. From a very young age Craig demonstrated his entrepreneurial skills, one of these was to trap and skin possums, which he got down to a fine art in record time. The proceeds from this bought him his first bike when he was just 14 (a love of bikes has stayed with him to this day). Although he hated school, the drive to succeed was always there – this led him to establish his own insurance brokerage company, which was extremely successful and the reins of which he has now handed over to his son. His favourite pursuits are still cycling but now include golf, motorcross, water and snow skiing.
In the thirteen years that Craig has been in our Club it would be fair to say that Craig’s endeavours have had a marked impact. He was Club President in 2018 and has held many Directors roles over the years but it his passion and energy for getting things done that is his real hallmark. This has been recognised by the Club with several awards, most recently the Mary and Lindsay McIntyre Award for demonstrating the Rotary mantra of Service above Self. At a District Level Craig was involved with the Rotary Youth Exchange programme for many years – hosting students from many countries in that time.
Craig outlined many of the activities he had been involved in, probably the most well known was the Lot 47 House Build which raised nearly $1million for use in the local community. However, the project most dear to his heart and to which he has given many hundreds of hours of his time, is the development and continued maintenance of the 45th Parallel Track. This track which does a circuit up and over ‘Sugar Loaf’ was first suggested by one of our now Honorary members, Donald Young, over twenty years ago. Donald even ‘accidentally’ sprayed a gully that would need clearing for the track to go up it. For some years this was a rather stop/start project which struggled to make a lot of progress, not least because of the changing requirements to allow it to happen. A seat and sign were eventually installed on Sugar Loaf in 2010. In 2012 Bill Roxburgh organised a group of PD workers to work on the steps. Those of us who had been in the Club right through this period well remember the times we spent supervising PD workers to build the steps, carting gravel and wood to make the steps (it is over 200 steps from the road to the top of sugarloaf!) and generally pitching in when help was requested. Craig took the project over in 2013, and under his leadership the project gained considerable momentum. Another seat was installed part way up the steps – in memory of John Webb, a long-time member if the Club. A car park and signage were finalised in 2018, in time for the official opening of the track, fittingly this was the year that Craig was Club President. Since then, Craig has done many improvements to the track, especially on the steps to ensure that they are safe and less likely to get eroded. He says that these days, if he is working on the steps, people often stop and talk or offer to carry material up for him. He had some interesting stories to tell, not least about the young woman who ran up and down the steps 10 times one day, apparently training for a marathon!!
It was estimated when it first opened that 5000 people a year were using the track. That number has multiplied several times over since then. It is a much used and appreciated community resource.
