The Great Duck Race 1 December 2024
Join us for the Raine & Horne Duck Race on Sunday 1 December 2024. The Rotary Club of Strathalbyn will again bring you a fun filled, free family day in the Strathalbyn Soldiers Memorial Gardens.
The fun starts at 10:00am where you can enjoy 3 heats of the race, and the great final event with 2500 ducks floating down the river for a shot at first place with the winning duck securing their raffle ticket holder a $1,000 cash prize. There will also by the Corporate Duck Race where there will be over 70 corporate ducks fighting for the honor of winner and bragging rights. Business's will also vie for the Best Dressed Duck trophy.
You can check out the program for the day https://strathrotary.org.au/Page/2024-duck-race-program
Raffle tickets to secure a duck in the race can be purchased by scanning the QR Code below or going to the Raffletix website. There are only 2500 tickets and they sell out well before the day, so don't wait too long to purchase.
PLEASE NOTE - There will not be paper tickets available on the day, however you will be able to purchase using the QR Code which will be displayed on the day.
You can also join in the fun by boarding the Steam Ranger Duck Train in Mt Barker. Go to https://www.steamrangerheritagerailway.org/event/the-great-strathalbyn-duck-race/
Major Sponsor -
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.
