Attendance: Nooka declared ‘things are in disarray in this club’ after Jon announced a return to the traditional pen and paper footy tipping after a full week of trialing the AFL footy tipping app.  Nooka reported ’22 members and 2 not eating’ in attendance.  So, was the attendance 22 or 24?  This was something for the twenty-three members in attendance to pondered as they ate their lunch.

Meal: Carbonara.

Sargeant David brought us the grim news that he has finally run out of lawyer jokes before delivering a good engineering joke and introducing incoming president ‘Paul O’Reilly’. 

 

Paul ascertained that we had no guests or visiting Rotarians before announcing that Bono has taken his caravan back to South Australia.  Last time Bono went to South Australia he smashed his caravan to pieces and then had to camp next to the severed head of a reality TV show murder victim during the long wait to have his caravan repaired.  It is the simple pleasures of South Australia that keep Bono coming back. 

Paul then advised members not to forget about the date of the combined meeting of the four Rotary clubs at the RSL before being surprised to discover that that date was the following day.  The number of members indicating they were planning to attend rhymes with ‘hero’.

Paul then advised members an opportunity existed to visit the Donations in Kind site in Footscray.  As long as it does not involve a combined meeting at the RSL, there might be some interest.

 

Paul also contgratulated those members who had recent milestones.

In other reports;

David then announced the passing of the legendary Dennis Cometti and gave us a few classic Cometti-isms.  I will give you one of my favourites.  After another bad loss by a team Dennis noted ‘So, it’s back to the old drawing board.  Obviously, a luxury that the guy who invented the drawing board didn’t have.’

We than had a surprise celebrity guest speaker in the form of Lew, who spoke to us about Warren Kennedy.  The Warren Kennedy memorial trophy is awarded each year to the winner of the Warrnambool Tennis Open.  Warren was a very good tennis player and keen flyer who was in the Citizens Air Force (RAAF reserve).  Warren won the Warrnambool Open three times in the 1950’s but then tragically crashed a Vampire jet on landing and was killed.  His son was born a week later, then his widow died two weeks after that.  His son, who would be about 70 now, is believed to be living in Melbourne.  We thank Lew for bringing us the tragic story of the man whom the trophy is named after.   Lew did not receive any quince paste, which seemed harsh.

Matt gave us an excellent footy themed fines session before some fines from the floor.  The barrel was drawn and yours truly pocketed the free lunch voucher.  The great thing about the free lunch voucher is that it is like having a ‘draw four’ card in Uno.  You can keep it in your hand and only pull it out and play it on Nooka when he is giving you a hard time. 

 

Your correspondent's wife reports that Sirileo's issues with the stewards pale in comparison to the problems facing camel beauty pageant contestants in the Middle East.  Sashi reports;

 

Footy season is upon us again, and that means footy tipping and footy betting.  

 

Ten years ago, Essendon was due to play Carlton.  Mark McFadden was certain his beloved Blues were going to lose.  Your humble correspondent was certain the Bombers were worse.  A wager was placed; the supporter of the winning team had to pay the supporter of the loosing team, so sure were both of us in the lack of competitiveness of our own team.  The Blues were terrible, but Essendon’s poor skills and lack of system carried the day.  The Blues won and your correspondent collected on the bet. 

 

In the ensuing ten years both the Blues and the Bombers have been terrible, and surely both are bottom four chances again this year.  Welcome to our world Geelong supporters.