Happenings at last weeks’ meeting
At the Golf Club again this week with Harry back on deck and a chicken dinner (I don’t know why the content of dinner has become such a feature of the Bulletin. Ed.).
After dinner Greg gave a brief update. The Habitat Restoration Fund Open Day is ready to go, thanks to our volunteer Marshals. The Dromana CFA looks like being our new venue but an e-mail will be distributed closer to the time to confirm where we will be meeting next week.
Harry spoke about his holiday being enjoyable until COVID hit his family hard and he has lost some members. In 2 to 3 weeks he will be getting away again to a meeting in Coolangatta. The District Conference is coming up and, even though the Club will not have too many attendees, there will be a number of Webinars which he hopes people will take the opportunity to watch.
It seems the Club just missed out on the chance to obtain some crowd control barriers. Unfortunately, by the time Harry contacted the person offering them they had been sent to the tip.
Chris had nothing to announce this week so the meeting sat back to listen to the surprise Guest Speaker, Charles Ross the “Man Behind The Badge”.
Charles was born in Malta and had a normal childhood until one day when he was 9 and a half his father, who was a tailor, told him they were emigrating to Australia. Charles thought “emigrate” was another word for “holiday” and excitedly boarded the SS Castel Felice for Australia.
Charles spoke of the trip out to Australia, talking about occasions like “crossing the equator” and seeing the Indian Ocean as flat and smooth as a lake. The first stop was Fremantle with the ship plodding along on one engine. This didn’t set them up well for the next leg which was across the Australian Bite, with the whole family seasick, to Port Melbourne. Many of our members could relate to Charles’ voyage, especially the “joys” of the Bite.
First stop in Melbourne was in Fitzroy but Charles’ Dad soon purchased a place in Carlton where Charles began his career as an Alter Boy. Next, the family moved to East Bentleigh. Charles left school at 14 to join the PMG and work in telecommunications. After 4 years he moved into Engineering as a Cable Joining Linesman Instructor and then as a Senior Officer.
(Remember these?)
During this time he courted his wife. She lived in Preston and he lived in East Bentleigh so this took some serious commitment. He was 16 and she was 14 but it lasted and they were married at 22 and 20. They have 3 children and 7 grandchildren.
Charles eventually left the PMG and started a partnership in a Service Station which lasted 12 months before he left and ran a Delicatessen for 4 years. Next he ran a 24/7 Convenience Store but found this highly stressful and move into Spare Part and Accessories. This went well until the “Recession we had to have”, and he lost the business. However, he survived and went on to run a series of small businesses until he retired, sold the house in Rowville and moved to Dromana.
Harry thanked Charles for telling us about his full and fascinating life. (Any mistakes are due to my bad shorthand. Ed.)
And Lastly.
After fines and Lotto the meeting was open to the members.
Once again our Market was missing from the council list in the council magazine. This is an on-going issue and will be followed up, again.
The tree hanging over our storage shed will need to be dealt with as it may affect the insurance on our trailers.
The Market on the 26th has less volunteers/supporters than usual and more will be needed to keep up the standard.
And we finished at 7:55, just as an hot day and balmy evening turned nippy and cold.
