After former Racewalking Australia president Peter Waddell died in 2002, many members of the Federation felt that his memory should be honoured in some concrete way.

At the 2006 Racewalking Australia AGM, a motion was unanimously passed to establish a Trust Fund, to be known as the Peter Waddell Trust Fund, for domestic travel, camps, etc.

An initial seed of $5000 was transferred to a special account to formalise the Trust Fund setup.

The fledgling Fund received a big kick start when Regal Racewalkers organised a raffle in July 2007, the prize being an original Melbourne Commonwealth Games 2006 shirt personally autographed by all 8 racewalkers in the Australian Team and professionally framed with a plaque.

The winning ticket was drawn by Nathan Deakes at the National Roadwalking Championships in Hobart on 27 August 2006 and it had been bought by none other than Troy Sundstrom of Regal Racewalkers. This was justly deserved as Regal led by example, selling huge numbers of tickets.

Raffle organiser Anne Saville subsequently announced that the raffle raised $2,690.00 for the Peter Waddell Trust Fund.

Since then, the Fund capital has grown to over $8000 so the project is well under way.

The criteria for distributing funds are yet to be worked out but this is our way of saying ... Hey, if you need help and are genuinely disadvantaged by lack of funds, and your performance level dictates some help, then for all intents and purposes, we (Racewalking Australia) should be able to help you.

In theory, once we have sufficient funds attracting interest, we should be able to start helping. Of course, this will take some time and a realistic target should be approx $20,000.

The Racewalking Australia Executive is currently reviewing ways of growing this fund and the Executive are keen to make an initial funding allocation, based on yearly interest, similar to the way in which the Alf Robinson Memorial Race Walking Foundation operates.

Racewalking Australia will also accept donations from past walkers and older members who wish to really put something concrete back into the Sport. All donations should be made out to 'A.F.O.R.W.C. Inc.' and forwarded to RWA Treasurer Andrew Mitchell, 20/172-180 Clovelly Rd, Clovelly, NSW, 2031.

Stay tuned.

Tim Erickson
19 September 2008