The Great Duck Race -  1 December 2024

                               

Stay tuned for more information throughout the year when the Duck Race is back in town along with the Adelaide Rally and CWA Market.

After such a wonderful event in 2023 there will be more excitement and more announcements as the year progresses. 

 

 

A little history about this event. 

The Strathalbyn rotary club began the Great Duck Race in 1990 and the club is continuing the tradition with one of their major fundraising event of the year.  Funds raised by Rotary are spent in the local community.  In 1990, the Director of the Club Service Committee, Frank Clennett, was charged with the responsibility of fund-raising on behalf of the club.  Frank bought 2,000 small yellow ducks and presented the bill at the next Rotary Club meeting, and the Great Duck Race was off and flying.  For the first race, local radio station 5MU, brought their outside broadcast van and broadcast the race live.  There was also the chance to be interviewed on 5AA which is something that the club still does.  Over the years there have been many creative ways to persuade those little ducks to race down the river. In the second year of the race it took the ducks 2.5 hours to make it to the finish line,  and there have been water jets to small boats encouraging the ducks (with a few sunk along the way).

In 2018 the wind machine was introduced and now encourages the ducks down the line.  

Raffle tickets are available for the great race, with the number on your ticket matching up with the number on the bottom of a duck.

We also run the best dressed Corporate Duck with local businesses battling it out for the prize which is voted on by the public.  The Corporate Ducks also have there own race with bragging rights up for grabs.