Images: Lion Max Tavasci. From left Josephine & Vlastik Skvaril, President Keith Allcock. Second image. Vlastik, Lion George Scheper (COY Chairman) and Josephine.
What a wonderful person to award the Citizen of the Year Award to. A gentleman who left the Eastern block of Europe with his family and settled in Tasmania. On retirement he decided that he needed excercise and started pounding the roads and his story follows. The address to the club by COY Chairman Lion George Scheper (in part)
"For the past few years, it has been my distinct pleasure to present to you our Citizen of the Year for the City of Burnie Lions Club. This year, our Club has again the pleasure of bestowing this honour on a person in the community who has proven his ability to serve the community far above and beyond the norm.
My story begins with a little boy growing up in the Czech Republic who became strong and adventuresome. So adventuresome that he and his wife and two children migrated to Australia in 1969 to Adelaide where he worked in an ice cream factory. He soon learned that the flat lands of South Australia were not what he was looking for so the family moved to Tasmania in 1970 where he took a job at Lactos where he worked for 22 years. He also had employment in Smithton and also leased the Chic Queen mixed business in Burnie for 8 years.
Always an active person, our nominee loved to bush walk and has done the Overland Track in Tasmania 10 times once doing it in 17 hours with a full pack.
Now as most men are looking at retirement age, he looked for another challenge in his life. It was then that the spirit of adventure given to him many years ago kindled a desire in him that he never knew before - he had the need for speed.
But, he decided that just running was not enough so he ran to raise money for charity. He has run to raise money for Make-a-Wish Foundation, Camp Quality and now recently for Canteen which is the Australian Organization for Young People Living with Cancer. He has run inland from the west coast of Australia a total of 5,978km to the east coast raising over $25,000 along the way. He has run from the southern tip of Tasmania to the northern tip of Queensland.
Recently he was having a beer in a pub with two mates, and they were talking about putting in a "Hooters Club" in the old Harris Scarf building. Well, he didn’t know what a "hooter" was so he went home and researched it and thought maybe it was a scooter and the old need of speed kicked in again. If he could run – then a scooter was faster.
So he took his scooter and had a go going from the Cadbury Plant in Hobart to the Cadbury Plant in Burnie raising money along the way for Canteen.
His next planned endeavor is taking his scooter from Adelaide to Darwin raising more funds for Canteen and celebrate his 70th birthday.
This gentleman has taken his need for speed and given to those in need. So as the slowest man in this room, I salute the fastest man in the room and ask President Keith to come forward and award the 2009 City of Burnie Lions Club Citizen of the Year Award to Mr. Vlastik Skvaril." End of Quote.
In receiving his award Vlastik paid a special tribute to his good lady for the love and support she has shared with him along his lifes journey. With out it who knows what he would have done in its place.
Lions Clubs Tasmania
