Serving community is Lodged deep in Albert’s being

While this latest milestone is a big deal, marked by the Lodge’s Worshippable Master, two Lodge members and his family joining him for a luncheon and medal presentation at Maculata Place, the Shepparton Villages residential care home Mr Kellock lives with his wife, Joyce, it’s but a drop in the ocean of his voluntary service throughout the years.

Albert’s parents, George and Annie, moved their three sons to Shepparton shortly after the Great Depression, in 1935.

Albert was the youngest of their three sons, who all went to Fryers St State School.

George and Annie were a community-minded couple who set an example for their children, which Mr Kellock says was his inspiration to also contribute to valuable causes.

As a seven-year-old Cub Scout, he started raising money for the hospital and the war effort by collecting bottles to cash in and playing piano at concerts and parties.

Years later, he was drafted into national service and trained for the Korean conflict full-time for more than three months, then on weekends and public holidays for two years.

It wouldn’t be the last time he raised funds for a cause he later found himself on the other side of.

Mr Kellock became a Scout, senior Scout and an assistant Scoutmaster.

After school, he studied for his accounting degree by correspondence while working at the accounting firm now known as Stubbs Wallace from age 20 until retiring at 60 when his first wife, Glenda, became ill.

Around the same time, he joined the Lodge, following in the footsteps of his father, who strongly believed in the cause, which “practises every moral and social virtue”, Mr Kellock said.

The movement is historically shrouded in secrecy, but Mr Kellock described what it is all about.

“It’s a gathering of men to work for the benefit of society,” he said.

“We do a lot of charity work that a lot of people don’t know about.”

He said funds were raised through various means, including dinner dances, working bees and private donations.

His Lodge raised money to establish Shepparton Villages, where he now lives in care as he battles cancer.

The OAM (2008) recipient for his service to the community of Shepparton through a range of roles with service, charitable, social welfare and local government organisations was on the board of FamilyCare for 40 years right up until last year.

He said his main role for the organisation, which now receives $20 million a year of funding for the Hume region, had been as treasurer, but he’d covered every position throughout his service.

As a public accountant, Mr Kellock has been frequently asked throughout his life to join committees as treasurer and subsequently took up other roles from secretary to chairman and everything in between.

For five decades he managed Shepparton Public Cemetery, a task he’d inherited from an old boss at Stubbs Wallace.

Simultaneously, the former City of Shepparton councillor (1977-82) clocked up decades on the boards of Electrical Contractors Federation GV Branch, Wesley Church, Shepparton South Rotary Club, Vision Australia and Child and Family Care Network.

He spent time sitting on several committees, including Youth Support Scheme, Shepparton Rooming House, Ibis Milk Products (now Fonterra) and of the schools his three children attended: Gowrie St State School, Shepparton High School, Shepparton Technical School and TAFE.

He contributed on fundraising committees to bring many facilities to the Goulburn Valley, including the Shepparton High School Total Tracy gym complex, Shepparton Velodrome’s concrete track, Wesley Tennis Courts, Gowrie St State School library and community hall, Shepparton North Scout Hall and the Association for the Blind’s Baringa Centre.

Mr Kellock says he was an honorary auditor for over 50 years for an average of eight organisations each year, evidenced by the many and varied awards, medals and certificates he’s been bestowed.

And now the past Master has one more to display with pride; 70 years of service to The United Grand Lodge of Antient, Free and Accepted Masons of Victoria.