About UCARF

Rheumatoid arthritis research has been the preferred charity of the Ulysses Club since 1997 when founding member, the late Stephen Dearnley OAM proposed the initiative. The impetus for the funding support was the sad death a year earlier of Stephen’s wife Jo who had lost a 20 year battle with the insidious disease.

The club has generously and proudly sponsored many scientific researchers over the last 25 years with strong support of the 137 plus branches and over the years the Ulysses Club Inc. has donated close to $500,000 to research. A few years ago the club took complete control of the funds by setting up a separate account known as UCARF (Ulysses Club Arthritis Research Fund). With this latter arrangement the club can now fulfil its idea of ensuring that 100% of donations are directed to the scientific researchers in the form of sponsorship.

We are currently (2026) funding three researchers at universities in Vic, NSW and OLD to the extent of $62,000 per year for the next three years. A total of $186,000, and 100% of those funds that we give, must be spent on research.   

The present UCARF Coordinator is Cheryl Mahedy supported by a team of State Ambassadors. The decision to choose award recipients is based on the previous year total donations to UCARF from Branch fundraising activities.

The awards are presented to the winning Branches during the Civic Welcome Ceremony, which is held immediately after the conclusion of the Grand Parade on Saturday morning. Both awards are presented by the Club’s UCARF Coordinator, with support from fund recipients engaged in arthritis research. The two awards presented are the Jo Dearnley Memorial Award and the Good Joint Award.

The Jo Dearnley Memorial Award was introduced as a perpetual shield to be awarded to the Branch which donates the most money to the Club’s preferred charity (UCARF) during the previous calendar year.

The Good Joint Award is also a perpetual shield that was introduced to recognise the generosity of smaller branches that due to their size are unable to compete in raising funds with larger branches. The winner of this award may be either a single small branch or a cluster of small branches that raises an impressive comparative amount of funds during the previous calendar year.

Recently, a new award was introduced to acknowledge Branches which have donated 1000 dollars or more in a year and is a certificate for membership to the 1000Plus Club.