In mid June, 2009, four members of the Youngtown Rotary Club (Chris Westlake, Leigh Iles, Ian Smith and Dave Morrison) packed their bags into a crew-cab ute and set off on the adventure of a life time.  The team travelled to Deonport where they boarded the Spirit of Tasmania to sail to Melbourne and then drive to the Traralgon area of Victoria in pursuit of assisting someone in need of assistance as a result of the horrific fires that ravaged the area in February 2009.  They were well accepted by President Charlie Speirs and members of the Traralgon Rotary Club and treated very much like a local if not like family.

They were coordinated by Stuart and Irene Cramer for the event, “they had no trouble spending his money”.  The first job was to help a fellow Rotarian, Norm Butler and his wife Sandra finish off odd jobs at the Salvation Army Recovery Centre, they included: hand rail installation, laying carpet, painting, fitting out inside and outside trims.

Next job was a place at Traralgon South, Red Hill Road #535 which was owned by Dorothy Sellers.  This remarkable Lady had the presence of mind to attach a sprinkler system to her house roof and save the dwelling but she lost everything else.  Their job was to build a dog kennel/ run to house her 3 dogs.  This was a great effort. 

From there they met a young lad by the name of Grant Jacobs who had lost his entire immediate family and had the daunting task of cleaning up his fathers business (Latrobe Equipment Pty Ltd) and setting it up for an auction.  This was the most moving and hardest part of their trip. 

They assisted Stuart in setting up for the next Rotary crew from Tassie. 

"It was a pleasure to have been a part of this trip as all of us worked as one and worked very well as a team" - now known as The A-Team.