PHOTO ALBUM

The Diner - 25 Years of Service

 PHOTO ALBUM Index 

 

The Diner celebrated 25 years of service to the Local Community

on Tuesday June 20th 2017

See also, "Goodbye to The Diner", end of this page

At The Diner, lunch was provided by volunteers every Tuesday (except during January), serving fifty to seventy people.

On this Tuesday in June, eighty people attended for the 25th Anniversary dinner, including many people from the early days of The Diner.

 

The Diner is for people seeking company and a delicious low cost (Five Dollars) two course meal and tea or coffee.  Held in the Activities Room at Warragul Uniting Church.

The chalkboard (shown at the left) displays the extensive menu available for this day, and lists the team on duty.

 

At the lunch, Olwyne Currie and Alan Pugh both spoke about The Diner’s journey over 25 years and how it has evolved from small beginnings of a simple meal of soup and main course.

The ecumenical teams started when our (Uniting Church) ladies had some food left over and took it up to St Vinnies, where they were asked what they were doing.  A team was formed from this enquiry.  Teams from the Anglicans and the Salvation Army joined after that.

These days we have a team to do the setting up each week, a roster for doing the dishwasher duties and also a roster for the cashiers.

 

Originally each team did all these tasks themselves.  How The Diner is set up and run today can be attributed to Judith and Alan Pugh’s foresight.

Alan Pugh had the honour of cutting the birthday cake which was then shared by those attending

Throughout the 25 years The Diner has been operating, it has  provided fellowship and a good meal for all who attend.

Additionally, The Diner has contributed funds to various worthy causes. 

The volunteers busy in the Kitchen,

and especially on this day!

Delicious home prepared food.

 

Goodbye to The Diner

The Diner has been part of the missional outreach of the Warragul Uniting Church since it commenced on 23rd June 1992.  That’s over a generation of service to the community in assisting to alleviate the needs of the disadvantaged members of the local community.

Over this time other churches became involved so we celebrated teams from the Anglican and Catholic Churches and the Salvation Army being part of this outreach.  We are grateful for the dedication and involvement of teams from other churches.  In recent years all of the churches have experienced some difficulty in maintaining and attracting the number of people needed for each team.  This year The Diner has been working with one team short which meant that others shared an extra load.  Early in 2017 the Salvation Army team indicated that it was unlikely to be able to continue in 2018.

At the meeting of The Diner Management Team held on Tuesday 17th October 2017, the leader of the Salvation Army team announced the team was unable to continue in 2018.  The other team leaders agreed that it would be too hard to operate The Diner with just four teams.   They also expressed concerns that their teams are getting older and thinner on the ground, less able to operate as needed.  This meant that The Diner in its present form was unable to continue beyond the end of 2017.

It was decided at this meeting that The Diner would cease its operation at the end of this year, with the Christmas Dinner on 12th December 2017 being the final function.

The current Team Leaders will meet at the end of January 2018 for a final clean up and check of all equipment.

Many of you will be sad at the end of The Diner after so many years of faithful service to our community - but we need to respect the decision of The Diner committee and look on this as an opportunity to celebrate what has been, and to look forward to what might be in the future.

Diana Donigi,  The Diner Co-ordinator

Alan Pugh,  Co-founder of The Diner

Des Parker,  Chair, Warragul Uniting Church Council