Announcing...
| Peter Matthews was blessed with a strategic, firm but diplomatic approach
to problem solving and was adept at initiating projects of value to the
community. While still at Adelaide High School he won the Eugene
Alderman Scholarship for what turned out to be six years' study at the
Elder Conservatorium. At the age of 14 he played violin in the Adelaide
Symphony orchestra.
In 1947 he was appointed as the first full-time Youth Director of the Congregational Church in South Australia. For the next decade his charismatic leadership was a decisive influence in the decision of thousands of young people to commit their lives to Christian and/or humanitarian service both within and outside the church. Ten years later, at a time of extreme racial and political unrest in Africa, Peter went to work for the Copperbelt Christian Service Council in Northern Rhodesia. Within a year, using funds from many countries, he brought new life to the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation and began to concentrate on preparing local community leaders for their new roles under self government. The Foundation was one of the few places where races could meet amicably. Returning to Australia in 1962, Peter became the Inaugural Director of Australian Frontier, a body set up to develop social responsibility and facilitate meeting, often between conflicting community groups, to resolve issues and accelerate change. The process was to identify an important social issue and then to bring interested and potentially affected parties together in a 'consultation' to thrash out the problems and determine appropriate action. In 1975, Peter settled in the Dandenongs to start a small protea farm. The ready acceptance of proteas in Australian floriculture today is a tribute to his initiatives. Peter's last crusade was in association with Lamdcare Australia and the Ian Potter Foundation. It involved a new ecological approach. Through whole-farm planning, redressing land degradation and undertaking often radical changes to layout, the empowered landowners developed new farming systems. Adapted with permission from the orbituary prepared by Rob Youl and published in The Australian, 4 November 1997. |
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