Le Tour De Taree Smashes Records in Final Ride of the Decade

The anniversary was marked by a sold out black tie gala held at the Club, where 300 guests were treated to a night of spectacular surprises including the evening’s MC, Australian showbiz royalty Rhonda Burchmore OAM plus a performance by Australia’s leading tenor Mark Vincent.

Club Taree CEO Paul Allen says he couldn’t be prouder of his team and the results, not only this year but over the past decade.

“It’s an initiative that I started 10 years ago, so I've been a very big part of it since day one and I'm just so proud as CEO of the commitment of my team to make that positive difference to the community,” Paul said.

“It's not something that we force on anyone, it's an individual choice as to whether they participate or not and I'm truly blessed that the culture of our team is that everyone puts their hand up and their attitude is ‘how can I help and what do you need?’”

The night consisted of entertainment, online auctions and live auctions — which saw a signed le Tour de Taree jersey go for a winning bid of $5000, purchased by local state MP Tanya Thompson who plans to hang it up in her office.

This year the Club Taree Community Team went out with a bang, with a target of raising $100,000 for the three week spectacle which sees staff members donate hours (plus energy and sweat) cycling dozens of kilometres on stationed bikes to raise money for RMHCNNSW — a target which was smashed with the final number a record breaking $191,013.

Le Tour de Taree was conceived in 2015 to mirror le Tour de France in distance and time. Over the last 10 years the team has ridden more than 67,000 kilometres and volunteered 4783 hours to pedal and raise funds for RMHCNNSW — this year alone riding over 5300 kilometres.

The event was earmarked as Taree’s social event of the year with Paul remarking that the evening was “phenomenal and iconic”. On the evening, Paul took a moment during his speech to tell the room that they had decided to end on a high announcing to the shocked room that this was the final ride. 

“The team and I have struggled with this for the last 12 months, but we considered that we wanted to end on the high which is why the 10th anniversary gala was originally conceived and that's exactly what we did,” Paul said.

“We felt we didn't want to lessen the legacy, so why not end on top?”

The night also took a moment to recognise the huge milestone achievement of funds raised by the Club Taree Community team across all initiatives over the last 10 years which totalled more than $1.14 million.

“I am so, so proud, this has nothing to do with ClubGRANTS and it has nothing to do with legislative requirements — it is just a group of teammates wanting to make a difference,” Paul said.

Since the gala night, the Club Taree team have been experiencing a mixture of emotions— elated and proud of their success, but also sad at the fact that there is no more Le Tour de Taree’s ahead of them. However, Paul confirmed that the team will continue to support RMHCNNSW across other initiatives, with work to be done in the coming months to launch those ready for next year.

“It’s very much a case of watch this space,” he said.