PEOPLE OF THE COAST Shirley Hadley, the first Mingara MY COAST

Left to right: Paul Barnett, CEO Mingara Leisure Group. Shirely Hadley, No. 1 member, Mingara Recreation Club. Phil Walker, Chairman, Mingara Leisure Group.

Shirley Hadley, the first ‘Mingara’

Nonagenarian, intrepid joke-teller, and sparkly nail polish wearer.

Mingara Recreation Club has turned 50 and it’s hard to think of a time when it wasn’t there, back to a time when women weren’t allowed in some clubs without being signed in by a male (whether known to her or not), and then that same male was responsible for her behaviour while she was in the club.

But there’s one person who remembers Mingara Recreation Club when it was just a gleam in her eye. And that is its very first member, Shirley Hadley. A still-young 90-year-old, she has a ‘never-stop’ attitude, and an unquenchable enthusiasm. She’s a life member and, not so surprisingly, is also the club’s patron.

‘At one time, I’d had my head shaved to raise money for charity, so I was wearing a hat on my bald head. Then I went to the old Memorial Club but they wouldn’t let me in because I didn’t want to take my hat off, so the idea of a new and more welcoming club certainly appealed to me back then.’

‘We raised money through chocolate wheels, chook raffles, car rallies and gambling nights. And on one occasion a dog.’

The club had its share of shenanigans across the years, and Shirley and her friend Joan Pateman (who’s proudly three weeks older) were never far away from it all. They well remember the Raging Rascals, an all-male review in the auditorium where the 100-strong female audience raised the rafters with screams of ‘get it off!’ Shirley is quick to say she was standing at the back of the auditorium with the local police officer who was keeping an eye on things. ‘He told me he was sorry his wife wasn’t there. “She would have loved it”.’

‘We also spent hours in Wyong Library looking for suitable local names for the club. We chose “Mingara” because it meant “good spirit that controls the clouds”.’

By 1973, the members felt they needed their own clubhouse and purchased the leasehold of 1.2 hectares of Crown Land in Adelaide Street. ‘It was all tea-tree scrub, and we had to clear it before we could build anything,’ says Shirley. ‘After that, an auction came up at Holdsworthy Army Barracks and we thought it would be good to buy one of the army huts as a clubhouse. But when the men came back they’d bought two.

‘We soon knew we needed a bigger clubhouse, so we applied for a bank loan, and a few of us put our houses up as collateral. I don’t think anyone would be mad enough to do that today.’

In 1980, with the help of fundraising, the first stage of a new clubhouse was built. But, incredibly, by 1987, the club already saw the need for even bigger premises, prompting the purchase of 44.6 hectares on Wyong Road in Tumbi Umbi. And in 1996, the current Mingara Recreation Club opened its doors.

Today, the one thing that hasn’t changed is its friendliness. ‘I have to drive 30 km to visit the club and, even if I’m feeling down in the dumps, this is where I go each week to cheer up,’ Shirley won’t be giving up her membership any time soon, nor her sparkly nail polish.