Oom Ben – Mr St John in Vryheid

Ben van Eck, the man who ran St John Ambulance in Vryheid, and was a member of that organisation for over half a century, retired at the end of November. We salute him. His has been an example of voluntary service that if trends continue will not be emulated, ever.
Volunteers are a dying breed. We look at the service organisations in Vryheid, the Lions, Round Table and Rotary, and see that membership numbers are as little as a tenth of what they were 30 years ago. Rotary in fact has closed. The Lions have seven members (yes, just seven members organise the Mayfair each year).
We see the volunteers on the committee at Vryheid Child Welfare are older people, as they are at Vryheid Hospice and at the SPCA. We understand that the committees of our sports clubs battle to get younger members to serve.
Apparently, this is not a phenomenon unique to Vryheid. People nowadays simply do not volunteer to do gratis service for the good of their clubs, societies and organisations and communities. Most often the excuse is that they haven’t the time.
We are very glad that Oom Ben and his wife Marie had the time. Thank you, Ben and Marie. We are lucky to have had you in Vryheid and in our community.