Page 151 - Friendships Through the Years

with great surprise, and then to thank the members for the honour. It was a well-kept
secret!
There were some very interesting speakers in Martin’s year. Gary Williams from the
Department of Social Security spoke on aged care reform for nursing homes and hostels.
There were many questions at the end of his talk. John Hutchinson and Moelwyn Jones
spoke on dramatization of Australian Diaries of a Welshman 1869-1894 and the musical
background of the Victorian Welsh Choir. Dr. Ian Gawler of the Gawler Foundation also
spoke. His topic was “Health and Well Being in later life”. Again there were many
questions. Laurie Crompton’s subject was Calligraphy and Ray Kollmorgan talked about
severe weather forecasting.
At the November meeting, the guest speaker was the Mayor of the Shire of Yarra
Ranges, Councillor David Hodgetts, accompanied by his acting C.E.O. Michael Corrie.
David gave us an interesting talk on his experiences when recently visiting the United
States. Club members posed a variety of questions to the Mayor on his trip and Mr.
Corrie was queried on a number of Shire matters.
Three of our members were speakers too. Henri Lausberg told us a very
interesting story telling us why he immigrated to Australia. At the same meeting, Bert
Hanson’s subject was “How peeling potatoes s aved my life” This was a very amusing
story plus some other experiences in the Navy. Donald MacLean again gave the
“Christmas Message” as he had also done the previous year.
There was no speaker at the January 1999 meeting. Instead, President Martin and
Secretary Bill Molyneux conducted a “Musical Interlude” of popular (and obviously not
so popular) musical selections to test the members and visitor’s knowledge There was a
fabulous prize but there is no apparent record of the winner’s name(s)
This was followed by a “Jack and Aileen Coffey special”, a barbecue on the
lawns between the Community rooms and the Lake. Brad Martin, Lillydale Lake
Manager, kindly erected a marquee, which was well used as it was a warm day. There
was an excellent attendance: 43 members, 27 ladies and 17 visitors. We had excellent
weather, an ideal setting and an enjoyable lunch.
There was no guest speaker at the February meeting either, but a “Club Forum”
was held and members (and some ladies) put forward a number of suggestions to assist
future planning.
Conduct of general meetings, monthly trips and outings, speakers, and coach and car trips
all got a mention.
Mention has been made throughout each chapter of the various visits to the Yarra
Glen races, the fact that quite often the weather had not been favourable and that those
who ventured there very often didn’t wait for the last race. Come to that, they did not
wait for the second last race and several times left after the third or fourth event, mainly
th
because of inclement weather, it being too hot, cold, windy or wet. The 11 annual visit
th
to Yarra Glen on Tuesday 24 March 1998 introduced us to a new reason for going home
early. The 25 members and ladies enjoyed the fine weather and their picnic lunch on the
lawns, watched the first event, the Steeplechase, then the track collapsed about 50 metres
from the winning post. A huge hole about a metre deep and several metres across opened
up and, despite the shovelling of a large amount of soil and sand by a number of people,
including even the stewards, the track was deemed unsafe. The meeting was abandoned,
and we all went home after one race!