Meeting Report 3171 August 14th 2023
Apologies for the evening:
Colin Bazeley, Julie Tekell, Tom Kelly, Anthea John, Anthony Barilla, Ron Lloyd, John Lyons, Geoff Bennier.
Guests: Karen Hewton Guest of Stan Raulston
|
This evenings Formalities:
Fines to: Polio Plus
|
|
Toast
|
Grace
|
Chair
|
|
Shawn Lock
|
Leanne Clinch
|
Kathy Heinrich
|
PP Barry Stewart introduced the chair for the evening- PP Kathy Heinrich. Kathy welcomed members and guests, then acknowledged the apologies before calling on Rotarians who wished to address the meeting.
PP Kathy -Kathy and PP Steve B had a meeting with Shaun from Nixon’s re members concerns with meals. Both feel it had a positive outcome but if anyone has more issues please see Kathy and Steve directly.
PP Mike Williams -Almoner jean Lloyd has recently had knee surgery and her recovery has been hampered by a pinched nerve.
PP Steve Barilla Steve called for more volunteers for car parking duties for Gawler show. We need about 16 people. He distributed the paperwork we are required to sign for the show committee.
After dinner, Chair PP Kathy introduced Barry for his sergeants sessions who conducted the wheel spin with the winning numbers going to Mark Smeaton, Mike Williams and Ian Sanders.
SaA Barry then presented his Bunyip roundup and Facebook funnies after encouraging everyone to sing Happy Birthday to Stan.
Barry invited PP Steve to share photos and update of the start of Anthony’s travels with the Variety Club Bash.
The boys left from Port Adelaide on Sunday. Jane Reilly announced the cars as they left and struggled when announcing their car because she was worried that “the Wog Boys” might be offensive to some.
Pres Kathy then introduced tonight’s guest speaker PP Mark Smeaton to give a history of Ahrens engineering.
The subject was very timely as today was Bob Ahrens 85th birthday.
The following report was prepared with the assistance of PP Brian Burt:
In 1898, a hard-working, young blacksmith decided to test his luck on the Kalgoorlie goldfields. But Johann Karl Wilhelm Ahrens, better known as Wilhelm, became seriously ill with typhoid fever and was forced to return home to the Barossa Valley with his wife, Alma, and their two young children.
Wilhelm rented a barn where he set up a blacksmith shop, offering basic services such as shoeing horses to the local farmers. On 5 April 1906, Wilhelm borrowed 100 pounds from Alma’s father to purchase a cottage and blacksmith shop on three acres of land at Sheaoak Log in the Barossa Valley, South Australia. This was the beginning of Ahrens.
For the first 50 years of Ahrens, Wilhelm and his son, Bill, ran a blacksmith shop at Sheaoak Log.
During this time, the business experienced many changes, including the introduction of motorised vehicles and power tools and tractors replacing horses for transport and farm work. In the 1960s, Bill’s son, Bob, joined the company and three generations of the family worked side-by-side for the next few years. In 1964, Bob’s wife, Marj, joined the business and under their leadership the company began to show real signs of progress. Bob was an entrepreneurial engineer and grew the business by extending its product range to include grain silos, field bins, rural sheds and stone and land rollers.
In the late 1970s, Ahrens began fabricating its own structural steel at the Sheaoak Log workshop. Construction work in the Northern Territory, as well as projects for the local wine industry, gave the business a strong foundation and it quickly established a reputation as a cost-effective supplier of steel buildings.
Bob and Marj’s son, Stefan, started working for Ahrens in 1988 and was appointed Managing Director in 1995. In 1998, Ahrens acquired the silo manufacturing and distribution businesses of Sherwell in South Australian and Victoria and in 2002 it acquired Webster’s Silos in Queensland. In 2003, Ahrens bought M&S Steel Buildings and established a second steel fabrication and construction base in Queensland.
More recent rural acquisitions included MPH Rural’s silo operations in Toowoomba, Queensland and Gilgandra, New South Wales in 2010; Jaeschke Silos in Tarranyurk, Victoria in 2011; Pioneer Water Tanks in Perth, Western Australia in 2015; Wheatbelt Steel in Western Australia in 2018 and the iconic Southern Cross brand in 2019.
Ahrens also expanded their international reach with Pioneer Water tanks taking ownership of US master dealer, Acer Water Tanks in 2018.
In 2017, to better service their customers and ensure the highest quality of their product range, Ahrens commissioned its own silo manufacturing line at Sheaoak Log in South Australia.
Ahrens Rural division now has a footprint of six primary manufacturing facilities in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, as well as a satellite operation in Tasmania.
As well as expanding its rural business over the past two decades, Stefan has transformed the business from a steel fabricator and shed builder to a national construction, engineering and mining services company specialising in design and construct projects. Ahrens has the capacity to deliver design and construct projects around Australia.
Today, the business has the advantage of sourcing steel from its own steel fabrication facilities, which have been extended with the addition of a semi-automated shot blast and paint-line and a world-class Custom Engineered Building line. They provide steel for the majority of their projects.
The Ahrens ethos of being ‘proud of the history but focussed on the future’ has meant they have continued to progress without losing their small business family feeling as they have evolved into a multi-million-dollar global business.
Ahrens remain community focused and support 311 charities and have donated over $10 million to local charities. In addition, each director must have a personal community service project. Ahrens has six key pillars that form our community engagement activities:
Accelerate Medical Research; Empower Youth; Unite all Australians; Stand Up for Mind health; Sustain the environment; Support Community.
In 2021 the Ahrens becomes a fifth-generation, family-owned Australian company with Ellen and Riley Ahrens joining the business. Both Ellen and Riley were recently made directors of the company.
At the conclusion of the presentation PP Kathy thanked PP Mark and closed meeting 3171 with the four way test.
