Steve’s Snippets
26 February 2003
Congratulations this week to Niall King. He and his committee organised a great Golf Day, with no rain and very kind weather conditions, and then he organised an excellent dinner meeting and fundraiser.
While we don’t have any details as yet, I’m sure it was a very successful function. Thanks should also go to members of Niall’s family who strongly supported the dinner and auction and the Directors of the Trish MS Research Foundation, the beneficiaries of funds raised on the night, for attending and participating in the function
There were only two problems with the day, firstly those bloody burglars, the McCluskie family who won with an impossibly good score of around 16 or 17 under par.
The other was the poor attendance by our members on the night. We only had 28 attendees instead of normally 40-42, and a much greater number of non apologies than normal. I do realise that it was a change of meeting night, and in this busy world today we all have many commitments, but this is traditionally one of our big fundraising evenings of the year, and I’m sorry but we could and should have done better.
Friday night was an interesting night supervising the Meriden School Interact Dance. With respect to fundraising I think we could perhaps learn from them.They sold over 400 tickets to the dance and sold chips, soft drinks and Glo-sticks at healthy markups, and looked like making over $6,000.
Well done Meriden Interact, (who also accepted my personal grovelling apology for not showing up at their church service, and ripped me off later) and particular thanks to Kevin Beltrame and Keith Stockall, who were very vigilant as security guards and helpers, and stayed from the start at 6.30pm to the close at nearly 11.00pm.
As you might know our wonderful auctioneer, MC and honorary member John Leftwich organises staff from his company (General electric) to support worthy causes with working bees. This year he has selected our charity, The Infants Home at Ashfield. John’s team will be doing some painting, building, paving and some general maintenance works on Friday April 4th and Sat April 5th and he has asked if we would like to assist. As we will have had a successful fundraiser and conference (that’s confidence for you!1), and the bike ride will still be a month away, I think this is a great project to assist with.
John particularly noted that electrical, plumbing, and building skills would be appreciated, and I also believe some materials could be needed.
I’ll ask community Service Director Angelo to coordinate with John over the coming weeks and clarify more closely how we can help.
I know this is upsetting for some members but the cycling season starts this Sunday with the Rotary Club of Castle Hill’s "Tour de Hills", followed next week by The rotary Club of Warners Bay’s "Loop the lake" ride around Lake Macquarie. I’m sure our club will have a contingent of at least ten (10) riders for each event, and we intend looking at the organisation of their events so that our first event in May is equally successful.
As a parting piece I wish to report at this stage NONE of the cycling group is tempted (perhaps excepting "Elastic legs Stockall") in entering the HUGE halfway across the world cycling tour posted by Ray on the website version of the bulletin last week. The entry fee is too steep, even though the funds go to the Polio Plus campaign.
Finally finally fellows, PLEASE consider registering for the conference this week, even if it is just for the conference sessions. You will see elsewhere in this bulletin details of the program for the conference, which promises to be as good as any before it (excepting ours of course).
Time is also running out to register for the international conference on Brisbane in June.
Have great week.
Steve