Bowls, golf, yabby races and high teas…they’re all keeping a vital emergency service up in the air.

After a busy year of fundraising, Coonabarabran’s Westpac Rescue Helicopter Support Group has raised almost $30,000 to help keep their community safe. 

Since 2003, the support group has existed with the sole purpose of raising funds to support the emergency service. 



The group's Chairperson Amanda Sutherland has been involved since the beginning. 

“It’s a service we need and the community relies on it. We’re on a major highway and at the foot of a National Park, so they come out and do search and rescue because people get lost in the park or have roadside accidents,” Ms Sutherland said. 

The service - which is co-funded by donorships, sponsorships and government contracts - requires that money raised locally stays within the local base, which for the Western Plains is the Tamworth based helicopter. 

In the year from July 2020 to June 2021, there were 412 rescues from the Tamworth base alone. 

Well practised in fundraising now, the Coonabarabran charity events go right back to the beginning, such as the golf event which ran in 2003. Others have come by chance.

“We took on yabby racing when the committee that was organising it didn’t want to do it anymore, and that’s one of our biggest money spinners. That day, we took about eight and half thousand in the first four hours,” Ms Sutherland said. 

Holding the event on the weekend of the Coonabarabran Cup helps, but the cancellation of the cup this year didn’t deter anyone. 

“Even though we had no Coona Cup, we still had a lot of people who had paid for their accommodation and were happy to come out and be here for the weekend…it’s just like horse racing,” Ms Sutherland said. 

While the community has been all too happy to help, Ms Sutherland said that recruiting new members for the support group is becoming a priority. 

“I think a lot of people don’t want to join or don’t like to be involved in a committee because they think they’ll be shoved into a role where they have to do stuff all the time,” she said. 

 “What we really want is people that can show up to a meeting, maybe sell raffle tickets down the street once or twice a week or come to an event and help us…that’s really what we’re after.”

With an ageing group, Ms Sutherland said she worries this year's fundraising success won’t last long. 

“It would be nice to see some young people come on board because if we don’t start recruiting the young people…all these organisations that have committees are going to slowly die,” Ms Sutherland said.