History

The 100+ Club was started in 1993 when one of our volunteers, Mrs Ann Kerr, who was visiting a resident for the Community Visitors Scheme, asked that resident if there was anything he would like to do.

The resident, Mr George Cartwright (who happened to be 100 years old) said he would like to have tea with someone his own age. The search began to find another resident who was the same age. After many weeks of phone calls to various aged care homes we eventually found Mrs Alma “Wolfie” Wolfenden, aged 101, at James Ommney Retirement Village. The morning tea was arranged.

This was how the 100+ Club was formed. Over the next 20 years things progressed rather slowly as far as the 100+ Club was concerned. The club had a number of functions over the years, usually attracting a small number of centenarians.

Then in the year 2000 the spotlight fell on the centenarians when both the State and Federal Governments decided to acknowledge and congratulate the members of the club. As awareness of the club spread, more and more centenarians from around the world joined the ranks. The 100+ Club can now look forward to seeing a larger number of centenarians at the various functions throughout the year.

Just Keep Breathing

Now I might hear you ask the question, where the phrase ‘Just Keep Breathing' came from?

Let me tell you a story about the loveable larrikin that was known as Eric Abraham. Eric was a World War I veteran, a digger in fact who enlisted at the age of 15 along with 2 of his brothers, he nagged his mother for 2 years to sign the consent form stating that he was over 18. In 1916 he sailed from Australia to Cairo beginning his career in the Australian Armed Forces.

Eric would attend events and functions and time and time again was asked to recount his tales from the war, it was the colourful way he recited them that had people listening to his every word. At one of these event a question that was posed to Centenarians and in this case was put to Eric, was ‘What is the secret of longevity?”, Erics response was priceless, simply stating ‘Just Keep Breathing”.