I hope all our members had a great Christmas and New Year.

Since my last President’s Report, we have had our Christmas lunch at Palmer and the cruise to Mannum. Thanks to John Courtney and our volunteers we had a great outing to Palmer. The food and company were good, and it turned out much better than I expected. The day was ruined when we got home to the news of the murders at Bondi. It is a bit like the Star War movies when hate turns the hero to the dark side of the force. These religious extremists have so much hatred, they end up serving the devil instead of their God.

It was also a good picnic at Mannum last Friday night. I decided that as it was my turn to cater, I would get subway. I was looking forward to something of a novelty all day and called in at the Subway shop on Adelaide Road at exactly 2 minutes past 5:00pm. The sign on the door said open and there were staff inside working but they just waved. I looked at the door, and it clearly stated that hours open were until 5:00pm! A takeaway shop that closed for tea? As I walked back to my car two other vehicles pulled in and then had to reverse out shaking their heads in disbelief.

However, I called at KFC and got some chicken and to my surprise it was cooked fresh and was possibly the best KFC I have had in years, so everything worked out in the end.

I do apologise in advance for not attending our general meeting in February as I will be on a ship in the Pacific. I will however be at the committee meeting the following week. Thanks to Claude our Vice President for filling in for me.

We have got some great events this year so please refer to our Newsletter for details. Thanks again to Yvonne and Peter for the magazine, I don’t know how they do it.

 Also, a big thanks to Graham Edwards for his work on getting existing and many new advertisers for our magazine.

I am still thinking about the joke of the three ducks. If only I could turn it down. However, I did see a Christmas joke about the very old man who said: “The kids keep laughing about my memory. They won’t be laughing at Christmas when there’s no eggs under the tree.” And an African Proverb, “The sheep will spend its entire life fearing the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd.”

See you at our March meeting.

President

Brian Rainey