Attendance: This week Nooka reported that ‘he felt okay before I got here’ and then saw last week’s handiwork from ‘unreliable O’Reily’.  Apparently, we came up one meal short this week and I think, sadly, Glen may have missed out.  The final count was ‘at least 24’ with one guest; Bev McLeod.

Meal: Another enormous chicken schnitzel.  It is difficult to say whether Glen was fortunate or unfortunate to miss out.  It has added five years to his life expectancy.

Dillo introduced our President to start the meeting.  In reports;

·       Dillo gave us a full report on the Myeloma fundraiser in Melbourne.  Sandy Roberts was there and Leanne Dick was flown in as a special guest.  Members were pleased to learn that Leanne later married a Mr. Allan Cockerel. 

·       Les gave us an update on the Beach Patrol beach clean up scheduled for April 14^th.  We will meet at the Flagstaff Hill carpark and car pool to Fitzroy River.  We might have a barbecue and should be back by 4.00.

·       Hutto gave us an update on the Myeloma Lunch on April 29^th at City Memorial Bowls Club  Jason Richardson and J.D. Hayes will be special guests.  Hutto is looking for donated silent auction items to sell on the day.

·       Robbo has donated another $9.30 of cans for the club.

·       Jon announced a barbecue for the benefit of the club at the Doggy Daycare official opening this Saturday, 10.00-2.00 next to Fiesta Pizza.

·       Paul gave us a footy tipping update.  Nooka, Jon, Tickler and yours truly are in the lead on three.  Pip, Boré and Les all scored a donut by failing to tip a single winner.  Nooka noted that he has signed up ‘Hickory Dickory’ and ‘The Voice’ for the footy tipping this year.

Our special guest speaker was Jon with an outstanding phantom race call of the 2024 footy tipping cup.  KY Jellie slipped home in first to claim bragging rights for the year.

Matt was taking down details of any members who want a new Rotary polo top.  If you would like a new top make sure you talk to our President-elect.

Club members get diabetes and a free coronary bypass with their tenth meal.

When is a gift not free?

Several weeks ago, Pip and your correspondent were discussing the frequent occurrence of ‘free gifts’, ‘complimentary gifts’, ‘free give aways’ and similar tautologies in commercial advertising.  Right on cue, young Rupert Murdoch slipped a flyer into Pip's letterbox with just such an offer. 

The flyer raises another interesting side of these promotions.  The flyer offers two bottles of wine and two glasses as ‘free gifts’ but only on the condition that you first purchase twelve bottles of wine for $140.  Of course, simply splitting a purchase of fourteen bottles of wine and two glasses for $140 into two sections, one purchase and one ‘gift’, makes no practical difference at all.  If a car dealer offers to gift you a car on condition that you purchase the spare wheel for $40,000, he is selling you a car with a spare wheel for $40,000.  For a good insight into why these sorts of marketing tactics work, I highly recommend Claudia Hammond’s book Mind Over Money.

Over the last few weeks we have published some seedy photographs from the club's checkered history of fancy dress parties.  This week we are pleased to publish a very wholesome and completely lovely photo that may have appeared in The Standard some years ago.  The photo depicts Robbo and his daughter Erica surfing on what I believe is the detached fiberglass tailgate of the old Volvo wagon.  Great work from Erica and Robbo.