HISTORY OF WELKOM PUBLICITY ASSOCIATION. The Publicity Association was originally part of the Welkom Municipality, The PRO, who was also the Mayor's secretary, the Librarian and the scribe usually did the marketing of the then Goldfields. This was not a major project in that time. Bart Cronje, originally from Kroonstad Correctional services was the man in charge of the office. Alwyn Rohrs took ove
r from Bart and at that time some of the tourist attractions were Ahlers winery, and the underground mine tours. The need arose to sell ourselves outside the Goldfields area. The Municipality decided to have a steering committee to form the Welkom Publicity Association of which Ian Auret was the Chairman. At this same time an informal flea market started out side the Liberty Centre around the water feature directly next to the Liberty buildings. There were 6 exhibitors. The library took charge of the bookings. The aim of the flea market was to bring people from surrounding towns to Welkom, as Welkom always remained the hub. In 1986 the Welkom Publicity Association was founded. Ian Auret became the first Chairman and Alwyn Rohrs was seconded to the WPA to handle the administration. All Executive Members have always been volunteers. The Welkom Municipality gave WPA a sponsorship of R 1 00.00.00 annually. Welkom was declared a City due to the fact that it supplied ¼ of the Free World with gold at that time. Amanda du Plessis, from the Municipality started to enroll members for the WPA and after 6 months took over from Alwyn Rohrs doing the administration of the WPA and moved to the Clock Tower. Why use the Clock Tower? At that time the Tower was not being used at all, and the Municipality felt the WPA needed to be situated near them. Plans were made to have a museum in the Clock Tower, as well as an outside lift to take visitors to the top to view Welkom. The aim was for WPA to promote the entire Goldfields and OFS to attract rate payers to Welkom. The WPA flea market has proven the one of the best ever ways to advertise Welkom. WPA and FGF (David Vermeulen) were role players in getting the N1 approved for Welkom.
