Page 249 - Be Reasonable – Do It My Way , Peter E. Daly AM, My Story

CHAPTER 24 - SEAL ROCKS, MELBOURNE ZOO AND AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE TRUST (CONSERVATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROPERTIES)
Melbourne Zoo
You must be asking yourself, how did I get on the Zoological Board which was responsible for the Melbourne Zoo, Healesville Sanctuary and Werribee Zoo. You might also ask the question, what did I know about zoology or for that matter anything other than insurance? Then you have got to think deeply and understand zoos and insurance are not all that different. But I will leave this question to your imagination.
During my year as President of ICA which goes back to 1986, I was invited to have a luncheon at the Melbourne Fire Brigade suggesting that the insurance industry appoints a Board Member which incidentally happened. Patricia Feilman who was on the Zoo Board and a fellow guest started talking about the many changes taking place, some of which sounded extremely exciting, particularly the idea of the public being isolated and the animals free. Not a bad idea.
Pat started to work on the project of using glass and it was a resounding success. Also she had a great art of raising money and getting Who’s Who in Australia behind the project. Why she chose me, I don’t know, because I was just a poor insurance man hardly making a living, whereas on the Committee that was set up was the old Victorian money and I was something like a “pimple on the bum”.
There were numerous meetings and then the idea came up that those on the Committee should raise funds. I did quite well at it, even though a lot of my donations came from my friends, but then I started to notice they tried to avoid me. My experience of raising money came from my period at ICA where I used to raise money for Federal and State Elections.
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