If you cannot attend our meeting it is important for catering purposes to let us know.
Please call Clive on 5562 2967 (H) or 5562 5852 (W) or ‘reply’ to this Central Spoke email.It is important that you let us know before 4.30pm on the Tuesday before the meeting.
Late apologies should be communicated directly to the venue; Central Court Motel 5562 8555
Minutes.
30 members plus Lea from France and Janick from Denmark. Sergeant Brendan opened with a brace of jokes, ultimately descending to "What lies twitching at the bottom of the ocean?"... Answer, "A nervous wreck"... And with that we were away.
Our club Christmas party will be at the Jericho Cup on Sunday, 2 December 2018. Lynchy has put a lot of effort into organising the show for us, so it would be great to have as many of us (and partners) there as possible.
The Light Horse are in town for the event and we had sufficient interest to be able to commit to putting on a barbecue for them between 1 and 3 PM on Saturday, 1 December. Hutto won't be riding a horse given he's had some sort of altercation with a tram in Melbourne during cup week, damaging his shoulder and hamstring in the same action as the tram rounded a corner. Certainly no shortage of ways to damage himself. Worse than one of our club cricket matches! All the best John.
We were reminded to have a think about any 18 to 25-year-olds who might be recommended to attend Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) at Camp Kangaroobie.
Community Raffle tickets were being printed during the afternoon and will shortly be available to collect and sell over the next couple of months, raising thousands of dollars for local organisations.
The movie night was a great success with the three clubs raising some $4200, which will be matched 3 to 1 by the Gates Foundation. Over $12,000 raised.
A tasty lunch was served, although it did remind me of the classic Barry Humphries skit, "It's a gastronomic delight darling. Magnificent! What do you call it again?"......"Curried sausages dear".....
Macca gave the results of our Melbourne Cup Sweep but it was all hopelessly confusing. Predictably Bullivant's horse came last, but he wasn't there to collect so the money went somewhere. Peter Ward supposably collected four dollars for being second last. Ian Senior got third but hadn't paid (situation normal). Ian Brown got second and immediate past president Pip won. From where I sat it was very hard to see whether any money made it through to Pip, so I suspect the club's coffers swelled again.
We then descended into Maccas chaotic fines session which was very entertaining and very lucrative. Lea and Janick gave reports on their recent activities, which were suitably horsey. Janick didn't ride a horse but went to the Melbourne cup. He also went canoeing on the Glenelg River at Nelson with an exchange student from France living at Horsham.
Leah did ride a horse, doing well again at Coleraine. Better than her poor coach who came off and broke her legs!
Finally, speaking of exchange students, I received a very welcome email out of the blue over the weekend from Aquiles Orduna who was an inbound from Mexico in about 1993. I'm in communication and will try and get some photos for the bulletin.
ROBBO
It is November, and naturally our thoughts turn to Christmas.Recently the Central Spoke caught up with Santa as he was preparing to take a swim at Aquazone.We asked Santa how he celebrates Christmas, and Santa replied; ‘Christmas is my busy time, but to relax I love to go to the races with friends and lay on a few bets with the bookies’.The big man certainly knows how to celebrate Christmas.
Jericho Cup.
Members and family are invited to join us at the Jericho cup.This event will also be our Christmas break-up.
When: Sunday 2nd December. Gates open at 11.00am.
Where: Warrnambool Racing Club.
Cost: $15 entry to the course for non-members, drinks at bar prices, please bring a plate to share.
r.s.v.p.: No need, just turn up on the day.
Fast Facts.
Christiana, Copenhagen
Many thanks to AB Robinson who, in September, drew our attention to an article in The Age that provides a basis for this week’s Fast Facts.
Christiana is a commune in Copenhagen, established in 1973. It is a haven for artists, drop outs, drug dealers, and tourists. An interesting interplay of social, economic and psychological factors have contributed to Christiana’s longevity and relative social equilibrium for nearly 50 years. Christiana is substantially self-governing, with residents who break the rules being subject to ostracism and expulsion. Apparently, social shaming and rejection are far more limiting of aberrant behaviour than the threat of being imprisoned by the Danish Government. Indeed, the Danish Government has adopted a relatively tolerant and, some would say, ineffectual approach to law and order in Christiana.
Pusher Street is a well known market for drugs, but drug dealers have become quite adept at disappearing at the sniff of a police raid. A continuing cat and mouse game is played between these two sides; with reports that drug dealers suffer from post traumatic stress symptoms as a consequence of being in a continual state of vigilance and their flight and fight behaviour.
Remarkably, Danish Police are reported to feel constrained in taking more aggressive approaches, due to safety concerns for tourists.
We understand that our Danish exchange student, Janick, and his parents visited Christiana prior to Janick leaving for Australia; unintentionally, we believe, contributing to the “tourist shield” that protects the nefarious denizens of Christiana.
Below; Either Christiana or a normal day at Rowan's.
Send in a pet snap.
Once again this week we ask members to send us in snaps of your dog, or any other favourite pet, with a brief story about the pet if you like. It would be great to do a little series about people’s pets. In the meantime, we bring you this snap of a dog relaxing at home.
Political update.
Although we generally avoid politics, we wanted to bring you up to speed with the results of the recent U.S. mid-term elections.One of the most surprising results was the huge victory of Dennis Hof, who was elected in Nevada with an impressive 68% of the popular vote.There are two surprising things about Hof’s victory.The first is that Hof was a major brothel owner.Call me old fashioned, but there was a time when this sort of thing was an impediment to elected office.Secondly, at the time of the election, Hof had been dead for three weeks.As U.S comedian Stephen Colbert observed, his opponent’s platform of ‘I am alive and I do not prostitute women for a living’ did not resonate with voters in Nevada.
Hof’s story reminds me of a similar episode in Australian politics.In the 1961 federal election former Australian Prime Minister Earl Page stood for the seat of New England.Shortly after signing the nomination form, Page lapsed into a coma from which he was not expected to recover.Page fought what could best be described as a low-key election campaign (much like Dennis Hof’s).Despite the fact that voters knew Page was in a coma and not expected to recover, he fell only a few hundred votes short of winning the seat of New England.Had Page won the seat, his party could have wheeled him into Parliament ‘weekend at Bernie’s’ style for important votes.Sadly, Page died without ever regaining consciousness, although on the positive side he never found out that he had lost the election.
Dennis Hof votes in parliament for the first time after his election win.
