On 26th July 1956, a public meeting, initiated by the Benalla Chamber of Commerce and chaired by Mr, Jack Lester, was held at the Benalla Memorial Hall for the purpose of proposing the formation of a co-operative housing society.

The society was eventually formed on 23rd August 1956 and the first directors were Messrs Noel Brown, Ray Davidson, Hugh Fogg, Norm Vanner and Martin Warmbrunn.  The secretary was Jim Smith.  Over the term of the society Ivor Brown, Colin Ford, Barry Harris, Gavin Harrison and Pat McDonald were also directors, elected on the decease of prior directors.

The purpose of the society was to provide low cost housing finance for persons in the low to middle income brackets.

The society was to be the first of 15 similar societies in the Benalla comunity, all within the one group.  12 of these societies were funded by the State Government and three by trading banks.  In all a total of some 525 homes within the Benalla precinct were funded over a life span of approximately 50 years.

In the early stages the maximum loan ranged from $6000 to $8400 or 80% of the cost of the house (whichever was the lower).  This limit was raised with the passing of time and in acord with rising costs and considerably increased inflation rates.  The term of the loans was set to be 30 years, but with good management a society was generally wound up after 26 to 28 years.

Funds were provided for the erection of new homes and for the purchase of existing homes within a radius of 25 miles from Benalla.

In order to become a member of a society, borrowers had to purchase, over the period, shares to the value of $100 each for every $100 borrowed.  Payment for the shares represented repayment of the loan.

The interest rate on Government funded loans was 3.75% and on bank funded loans the current commercial rate.  There was an income limit on Government funded societies to ensure that all borrowers were eligible..  This restriction did not apply to bank funded societies.

On entering into Jim Smith's accountancy practice in 1968, Ray O'Shannessy became a joint Secretary and administrator of the group.  Tony Smith became his assistant in approximately 1986.

The Number 1 society was wound up in March 1984 and the others progressively thereafter, into the 2000's.

There were difficulties along the way. A number of members occasionally experienced difficulty with keeping up with repayments.  However, eventually, all bar one member, managed successfully.  The unfortunate one was regrettably sold up, but at no financial loss to the society.

In early 1985 the secretaries' office manager fraudulently appropriated a significant amount of society funds ($142,000) for his own use.  Due to strict internal control procedures, the misappropriation was discovered within three months, and the secretaries wee able to recoup the shortfall from their insurance company.  Of concern was the fact that the insurance company dallied for a period of three years before paying the claim.  The secretaries' office manager served a prison term in Dhurringile prison.  

However overall, the Cooperative housing group was a boon to Benalla residential ownership, providing finance to borrowers who otherwise would have gone without.

Ray O'Shannessy
June 2020 

fIt is an understandable fact that my wife Bernadette has been, for over fifty years, the most influential person on my life.  I just do not have the words to verify that statement.  Her very existence is simple proof.

My children, undoubtedly, are the next in line.

Having not personally experienced a family upbringing, it is difficult to express the gratitude that I feel in having a family.

Outside of family, I would say that Norm Matthews was, perhaps, my greatest influence.  I don't recall when I first met him, but would venture to say that it was on the bowling green.  Norm skippered me in the number one Benalla pennant team which was then known as the "Whites".  This situation continued for a number of years while each of us was also involved in the mechanics of the administration of the Benalla Bowls Club.  We both served on the Board of Management and other sub-committees.  We also successfully played bowls in the Victorian Country Week competition for many years.  In 1986 we created a corporation titled River Gums Estate, and with a group of other men, we purchased and commenced to develop, forty five acres of land on the south eastern boundary of Benalla.  We ultimately developed one hundred and fifty residential blocks, and at the present date, development has been completed and we have just two blocks left to sell.  The financial reward has helped sustain me in my retirement.  Regrettably, Norm passed away in 2004, just prior to being recognised as a life member of the Benalla Bowls Club and having his name appended to a wing of Benalla's Cooinda Retirement Village.  I served with Norm for nine years on the Cooinda finance committee.  During our long association, in business and friendship, never once did we have a cross word.

The next person to have a significant influence on my life was the late Rolfe Mann.  Rolfe worked in a building beside my office, in his role of manager of the Benalla branch of the State Electricity Commission.  In 1969 he became chairman of the Benalla Rose Committee.  I was his treasurer.  This was a very demanding committee, meeting often twice per week in the nine months prior to the Rose Festival.  In that term, as a proud to-be father, I confided to Rolfe that Bernadette was expecting our first child.  Not to be outdone, Rolfe confided that his wife Shirley was, too, expecting.  It was to be their fourth child.  In due course, our son Anthony was born hale and hearty.  Christine was born to Shirley and Rolfe, but there were complications.  Christine was born suddenly and unexpectedly while Shirley was showing.  The dramatic result was that Christine endured brain damage.  As the children grew, there was a movement within Benalla to establish a Centre to cater for people with intellectual disabilities.  Rolfe became treasurer of the establishment committee.  After the secretary of that committee was transferred in his employment some four months after its formation, Rolfe asked me to become Secretary.  And so began an association which saw the building of the Ballandella learning centre, and the ultimate Ballandella residential building.  Ballandella was then the registered name of the Benalla and District Mentally Retarded Peoples' Welfare Association.  It has in recent years been taken over by Yooralla.  I was secretary for nine years, then, when Rolfe became president and we appointed a paid Secretary/manager, I took over as treasurer for a further three years.  Being on the committee was an arduous task and Rolfe and I worked well together.  In his other life, Rolfe decided to stand for Council.  He was successful and held office for many years, including something like three terms as Mayor,  At each election I was his scrutineer.  Regrettably Rolfe developed cancer and died at the young age of fifty five years.  The end of a very powerful friendship!

It would be remiss of me not to mention my business partner, Jim Smith.  I believe we met when we were both members of the Lions Club of Benalla.  Jim asked me to work with him in his accounting practice in June 1967.  He encouraged me to study Accounting and when I graduated we went into partnership.  For many years we conducted a successful and respected business. We endured a fraudulent office manager who absconded with a serious, significant amount of funds.  We experienced the 1993 floods, which went through our office at desk height.   As one would expect we had our differences, and at times there were strains on our relationship.  Jim was by nature a devoted family man, and at some time or another we employed each of his six children.  I found them all to be friendly, hardworking, intelligent persons and had a respectful relationship with them all.  Even now, some decades after retiring, I consider Tim's son Tony to be one of my closest friends.  I still have, and still treasure, a letter of appreciation which Colleen gave me on her retirement to purse an alternate career.  Jim and I sold our business interests to his son Brendan in 1995.  At a later date Tony, when he qualified, joined him.  I continued working in the practice until 1998,  Jim stayed on some years until he retired to Yarrawonga.  He passed away in 2013.

In my early days, as a youth in Benalla, I had a wonderful friendship with Bill Keenan and Kevin Hernan.  I renewed this friendship when I returned to Benalla in 1963.  Regrettably they both died at an early age: Bill in 1970 and Kevin in 1979.  I have fond memories of them both and have often wished, in later life, that they were still around to be my friends.  This friendship was responsible for my involvement with the Hernan family, who gave me the home that I had never before experienced.  The Hernan's kindness and generosity was outstanding, marking the beginning of a relationship which has lasted a lifetime.  For too many years to remember, I acted as Santa Claus at their Christmas Day festivities  I also proposed the toast at each of their twenty first birthdays.  I don't have the words to describe what this family meant to me.

Whilst in Wodonga, I formed a strong relationship with Tim and Mick Flanagan.  We had many outings together.  Unlike the Hernans, I did not have an association with their family.  Nevertheless, I also have fond memories of these two friends.


Ray O'Shannessy,
June 2020




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​Having lost my mother to cancer when I was 4 1/2 ­­ years old I was sent, with my brother, to Villa Maria in Ballarat East.  Villa was a primary boarding school for boys run by the Catholic order of the Sisters of Mercy.  The nuns would be appalled if they knew that I referred to it as institutional, but frankly that is the way I always imagined Villa to be.  The nuns, while taking on the daunting task of mothering and educating 25 boys aged from 5 to 14 years, were to my mind, sometimes lacking in consideration of the expectations of their charges, making my thoughts understandable.  As a consequence, I experienced a somewhat unhappy childhood.

How did I fit into this environment?  I was the son of a farmer who, because of his aging mother’s Alzheimer’s disease and his own alcoholism, lost the farm to the bank.  Consequently, he became a pauper and was unable to afford my schooling.  However, his sister was a “reverend mother: in the convent, also in Ballarat East.  This fact was obviously to my advantage in gaining admission to Villa.

My term of 7 1/2 years at Villa was a mixed one, with numerous ups and downs,  yet at its conclusion I passed my Merit Certificate,  I also obtained a scholarship which provided me with secondary education and accommodation at St Patrick’s College, a boy’s boarding school, also in Ballarat.

Happy memories of Villa do not come readily, although of a weekend we would often go on walks in the beautiful surrounds of the Ballarat countryside.  I recall having fires into which we would throw potatoes and roast them, splurging them with the ever-available butter.  Ever available because the nuns ran a farm ion conjunction with the school.  The farm provided milk, butter, potatoes, fruit and vegetables and was a distraction from more mundane doings.

On the darker side, as a tiny slip of a kid I rarely ate my meals.  As a result, I would regularly be forced to stay behind in the dining room while other kids had gone out to play.  I did, however, have a stroke of luck in that some how a packet of envelopes came into my possession.  Yes, I would wait until all the other kids had gone out to play and surreptitiously fill an envelope with my uneaten meal.  The envelope would eventually find its way into the incinerator.  All very good until I was caught out!

The nuns placed large import on their straps as a means of punishment.  Sister Brendan claimed to have a strap 6 feet in length.  Or it was until she broke it on me!

Sister Brendan also possessed a nasty streak in her character.  She took a disliking to my brother, Basil.  She took it out on the “horse”.  Remember the “springboard” and the “horse” gymnastics!  Well, Basil did not shine in gymnastics, and she chose to show him up in front of the whole school.  I was quite adept at this sport and she decided to pit him against me.  As was to be expected, he performed very poorly and I was in good form.  I won’t say I did it deliberately, but I managed, as I hurdled the horse, to kick her fair and square in the mouth.  I can still see the imprint of my wet sand shoe on her face.  Poetic justice!

The above are a couple of poorer examples over my term at Villa.  There were many other incidents, both good and otherwise, but I must admit that the nuns, obviously, despite all their faults, gave me a sound grounding for what has turned out to be a fulfilling life.
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Ray O’Shannessy
25 May, 2020