2012 Guest Speaker
| January |
Presentation by the Webmaster on the Clubs Website who briefly outlined the background to establishing a club website, its structure, reasons for establishing a secure members area and information contained in each section. |
| February | The speaker was Andrew Melrose, known for good reason as The Snake man. Andrew has been involved with reptiles since childhood and obviously has a fascination with them, turning a hobby into an occupation giving demonstrations, advising TV shows etc as well as supplying slithering "actors" when required (No, not that one, he's human). Andrew gave a very interesting talk and presented a variety of reptiles to the audience, including turtles, lizards, snakes and a one metre crocodile. With the exception of the crocodile, most were well behaved, and some members later accepted the invitation to touch and take a closer look. |
| March | AGM and no Guest Speaker |
| April |
Bruce Shyling - Woman Under Sail. |
| May | The May Speaker was Lloyd Griffiths who gave a very interesting and informative talk about "Electricity" - in the house and generally. After a career of working with electricity and apparently having received a few shocks along the way. Lloyd sparked the interest of the audience with his simplistic explanations which dispelled some of the mysteries of electricity, and its application in our homes and lives. |
| June | Our very interesting June speaker was Coral Walsh, a Trustee of the UK organisationWomen Welcome Women World Wide. (Women travelling internationally) which was founded in 1984 and at any time has some 3000 financial and active members worldwide, including some 534 in Australia. Their aim is to encourage and assist its members to travel safely internationally, foster friendships and experience other cultures. Coral was and still is (at age 82) a long distance trekker and has walked many countries. At age 75 she walked one of the “El Camino” pilgrimage trails across Spain and entertained our group with stories of that venture. She displayed the practical contents of her travelling backpack which seemed literally to be “bottomless “ and she offered many practical travelling tips for trekkers. |
| July | At the conclusion of our shortened formal meeting, School Principal Joanne Jarvis gave our members an insight into the recommendations of the “Gronski Review” an investigation into the way schools are funded. It warned that Australian school standards are slipping compared to global standards and offered a number of recommendations to improve standards. An extra $5 billion would need to be injected into the school funding to implement the recommendations. Not surprisingly, it appears the review has received a lukewarm response from Government. We then enjoyed a delicious morning tea, prepared and served by Hospitality students, who had laboured under some difficulties due to a freezer having been turned off by a contractor. It certainly did not detract from the quality of their efforts. We were then entertained as always by talented vocalists, dancers, musicians and choir members from the student body, and all received well-deserved enthusiastic applause for their wonderful performances. The entertainment ended with a delightful performance of “Michael Jackson” dancing by the Support Unit students and a grand finale involving all, of a number from the recently performed Engadine High School musical “13 The Musical”. Our President Janice Harley again thanked and commended Principal Jarvis, students and staff for their hospitality and performances and reiterated that our attendance at the school was one of the highlights eagerly anticipated each year by our members. |
| August | The August speaker was Jo-Anne Berthelsen, author and speaker, on the topic “Write from the heart”- an author’s journey. Jo-Anne enjoys writing historical and contemporary Christian fiction and has written five novels and is currently writing her first non-fiction book. She outlined her views on what is required to become an author, including drawing from your own life’s experiences, believing in yourself and having the discipline to edit, re-write and accept feedback, finding a publisher and handling rejection. Jo-Anne has her own website www.joanneberthelson.com |
| September | This month our speaker was Lorraine Rodden, a long time Sutherland Shire resident, a past Councillor and Mayor of the Shire - her topic was "Being a Carer". Lorraine is a Registered Nurse who works part time in an aged care faciltiy and has been involved in the nursung/ aged care industry for many years. She spoke of personal family experiences of being a carer and provided thought provoking information regarding low and high care nursing homes. I thought her talk was most informative and thought provoking for anyone who is likely to involved moving a relative to an age care facility. |
| October | The speaker was Jason Kwong, a financial advisor from Your Life Now Financial Services, who gave an interesting insight into retirement planning topics, including Superannuation, Social Security, and Aged and Account based Pensions. Jason outlined a number of case studies with various financial strategies to increase financial returns, which prompted a number of interesting questions from the attentive audience. |
| November | The November speaker was Gay Hendrickson, writer and curator, who spoke on Convict Female Factories. It is estimated that 1 in 7 Australians are descended from convicts. They include celebrity chef Maggie Beer and former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and John Howard. (In a show of hands, many at the meeting were aware of convict ancestors). Gay spoke of the deplorable conditions in the female factories, the first of which was at Parramatta in 1796 with a total of 12 later scattered through the Australian colonies. The transported women often brought their children with them, although many families were separated The factories served as a gaol, an asylum, a hospital and for manufacturing woven cloth. Gradual reforms improved conditions marginally but riots were frequent. In 1827 the Parramatta Factory was the site of Australia’s first industrial action when the women rioted for better food and conditions. It was also the site of the first manufactured export of woven cloth. Gay gave a very interesting insight into this period of Australian history. Parramatta Female Factory website. |
| December | The December speaker was Ron Armstrong, a retired police Detective Inspector who gave a humorous, sometimes hilarious, entertaining account of some of the “Scoundrels” and crooks he encountered, firstly as a young Constable working in Darlinghurst and Kings Cross and later as a detective. He spoke of several underworld characters familiar to our members per medium of television shows like Ünderbelly etc. He also touched on investigations into other undesirables, such as the kidnapper and murderer of young schoolboy Grahame Thorne, son of the first Opera House lottery winner in the 1960’s, the escape artist and crook Darcy Dugan, the “Mutilator” murderer, and “The Kings grove Slasher”.
January Speaker - Jim Bird on Mercy Ships (basically hospital aid around Africa) Note: Visitors are welcome to come to hear the Guest Speakers. Morning tea cost is $2.00 |