Mrs Carolyn Biggs

Carol Biggs has been an active participant at the Lane Cove 12ft Sailing Skiff Club for over forty years. She first started attending the club in 1963 when as Miss Carolyn Mills she was dating one of our eligible bachelors Richard Biggs. She would religiously travel by public transport from her home at Brighton le Sands to Longueville to watch Richard sail. In those early years, she and Mavis McCarthy, the girlfriend of George Eden, were the only females who were game enough to enter the clubhouse on a Saturday afternoon. She was a trailblazer for the present female members.

After some years she and Richard were married, and as a house mum with small children, she would each week drive the Club Captain, George Eden, to Campbells, to stock up the canteen, arrange catering for functions, even get petrol for the pickup boats ... the list goes on. This was something she did for ten or more years and only those who knew George can know how demanding (in a nice way) he could be.

Carol was a key figure in raising funds for the new clubhouse. She worked tirelessly with Judy Myers, Joan Watson, Marian Leslie, Jean Bay and others during the late sixties, early seventies to raise money as well as provide first class functions at the club enabling the transformation of the then existing single story shed into a two story clubhouse, the extension of the slipway, the construction of the Western Shed and the building of change rooms and toilets all of which we still enjoy today.

Later with others, she organized many social functions for the club, many involving amateur acting performances in which she danced and lent much needed touches of professionalism.

As soon as there was mention of Centenary celebrations in 1996, Carol was at the forefront of the organization, researching past members' addresses and organizing social functions. She is still involved coordinating, with others, a book of the club's history. She has spent a huge amount of time collecting old photos, organizing interviews and written submissions and chasing up information in order to produce a lasting tribute to the club.

Carol has been a consistent supporter, quietly working in the background supporting, first "Biggsie" and then the club. Her outstanding people skills are probably where we have benefited most from her being around. She has been a great "glue" to cement the club family across the different generations and diverse personal characteristics of the members to ensure all were supported and appreciated. To this day she is still supporting some of the older generation like Nina Eden, Bev Griffith and Mrs Kallas.

Our club has benefited from a lifetime supporter without any trumpet blowing.