Meeting for April 27, 2010

First of all…
I’d like to say that it was a particularly poor turn out this week, and those of us in attendance were a bit embarrassed in front of our guest. On the plus side, the 12 of us that were present were, in the words of our guest, “a lot younger than he’d expected”.

May dates of note…
Bob’s wife Jenny has a birthday on May 1st.
Jack’s wife Ruth has a birthday on May 8th.
Arthur’s wife Hillary has a birthday on May 11th.
Tim’s wife Sue has a birthday on May 19th
Tom and his wife have a wedding anniversary on May 20th
Frank S has a birthday on May 26.

Last week’s meeting (April 20, 2010)…
This week, Anthony J once again led us in the Rotary Grace. Frank S introduced our guest, Steven McKelvie from Country Link. Apologise came from Bob P, Nev D, Chris B, and Peter C. Our guest then went on to win the H&T for the evening and, later on, drew Tim S for the door prize.

David W then gave us a reminder of the Bathurst Half Marathon on May 2. He’s requested that we turn up at about 8:10 and we’ll be there until no later than 11:30. We need a lot of people but this will be very easy money so please do your best to turn up and bring a partner if you can coax them out of bed on Sunday morning.

Anthony J gave us a brief of the incoming mail. In particular he showed us the certificate of thanks from the Mitchell Conservatorium of Music for our ongoing support. There was also a letter of invitation from the RC Bathurst East to attend their dinner on Wednesday May 5th. Their guest is Dr Brendan Smith who will be presenting on the closing of St Vincent’s private hospital. I’ll attend on behalf of our club and present what’s said in the blog for that week.

After dinner, we heard from our guest for the evening, Steven McKelvie, a Travel Centre Manager for CountryLink. Steven has worked for CountryLink for 32 years and claims “I wouldn’t change a thing about my job.”

While Steven mostly manages the tours now, he also told us about some of the routine services out of the Bathurst station. He spent his first 10 years doing clerical work, including train control, of freight and passenger trains. It sounds like a busy job as the Bathurst Station alone sells over 1000 tickets per week and has 121 services per week. Did you know you can get to the centre of Melbourne in a day for under $100 by rail?

Now he manages one of four travel centres in NSW. Essentially what he does is organise rail vacations. Steven brought along some brochures of upcoming trips all around the state and interstate… some truly amazing deals! Not only does Steven manage the trips but he goes on between 6 and 9 every year as a tour guide. As he says (with a nod and a wink) he’s away on “Work Trips” for 14 weeks of the year. Some trips are so popular (like to Port Macquarie), the trip is booked out before the brochure is even printed.

Steven is clearly very good at his job because, as the travel centres were progressively downsized, he not only kept his job but has also been given progressively more and more managerial responsibilities. He’s on of the top 20 agents for the IP trips and was RailCorp’s Employee of the Year!

As a final note...
We should finally note to add Danielle to our list of "Do not ask to sing" for the most shocking rendition of Advance Australia Fair since Pete C was asked to do a solo!!! No offence Danielle, but really... ;-)

This week’s meeting (April 27, 2010) …
At the meeting on April 13 we discussed having our guest to be our NYSF representative. Has anybody contacted her about this? If not, it seems doubtful we’ll have a guest. Also note that the VoT will be delivered by Chris B and the registrar is Sally. Sally, I don’t think you’ve done this before but just sit at the table well before the meeting starts and Frank/Karl will show you the ropes.

In the coming weeks...
• May 2 – David W (Half Marathon)
• May 2 – Bob P (Golf Tournament)
• May 4 – Guest Speaker: Nev D; VoT: Peter C; Registrar: Tim
• May 11 – Guest Speaker: Danielle; VoT: Sally; Registrar: David N
• May 18 – Guest Speaker: Anthony J; VoT: Andrew C; Registrar: David W
• May 25 – Guest Speaker: Steve E; VoT: Tim; Registrar: Eric
• June 1 – Guest Speaker: Peter F; VoT: David N; Registrar: Frank
• June 8 – Guest Speaker: Chris B; VoT: David W; Registrar: David S
• June 15 – Guest Speaker: Greg S; VoT: Eric D; Registrar: Nev
• June 22 – Guest Speaker: Karl M; VoT: Frank S; Registrar: Danielle
• June 29 – Adam S / Peter C