Luncheon presents Lorne Community Cup

THE debut of the new Stribling Reserve Community Pavilion has also seen the latest awarding of one of Lorne’s highest community honours.

At the Committee for Lorne Community Luncheon, held on Friday last week, Lorraine Griffiths received the Doug and Mary Stirling Lorne Community Cup for her tremendous efforts in fostering more than 140 young children in her home.

Originally known as the Doug and Mary Stirling Cup, the biennial award to honour outstanding service to and leadership in the Lorne community was an initiative of the Lorne Lions Club in 2013, and was first awarded to (and thus named after) Doug and Mary Stirling at a dinner in 2013.

Forged in the 1920s from sterling silver, the cup was reportedly once a doorstop in a Scottish ancestral home.

The cup was awarded to Henry Love in 2015, to Jan and Peter Spring in 2017 and to Carly Endicott in 2019.

Committee for Lorne chair Ian Stewart said the Lorne Lions Club went into planned recess earlier in 2022 and passed on the responsibility of safeguarding and awarding the cup to the Committee for Lorne.

He said awarding the cup to Ms Griffiths could not be done in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so last Friday’s event was not only the presentation of the cup and the first of the Committee for Lorne’s quarterly community lunches for this year but also the first formal community function in the new pavilion.

“A lot of things just fell into alignment that made it such a special day.

“To think that we had just over 100 in attendance in our new pavilion, overlooking Stribling Reserve and having an award like this for a story like Lorraine’s story … there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”

He said the Stribling Reserve Community Pavilion was “absolutely first-class”.

“It’d go without saying that it’s now the best function centre in Lorne.”