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From the President’s desk
13 February 2019
Hi all
Trish Golf Day
The Rotary season is Golf, the Trish Golf Day is
approaching, Thursday, 21 February, 2019. The numbers are being
counted and checked, with same passion and hope as a retiree
checking his or her superannuation balance. The team, with Niall and
Ray, as said last week, are the Blues Brothers, with the mission to
bring the Trish Golf Day back to Strathfield course and the Rotary
Club. The teams are coming in and it will happen.
Last weeks Meeting
Our speaker last week was unable to attend. The
forum at Rotary is not a vacuum. Rick gave us an update on District
and his attendance at an Assistance Governors'training/briefing day.
Paolo spoke on Emergency Services. Then time to hear from Past
President Ray Wilson, on his 40 years as a Golf Professional, and
his struggles with being near death. A reflective comment by Ray,
immediately on completing his presidency of Rotary, he had his first
Cochlear ear implant. Ray in his talk mentioned the one iron, a
difficult club to master. There are some carry a one iron for
encounters with snakes, others have been given name for reasons only
known to friends. The great golfer Ben Hogan, with a long one iron
came from a stoke from behind to tired for the lead, winning play
off and the 1950 US Open, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/sports/golf/1-iron-made-famous-by-hogan-largely-absent-at-us-open.html
, This stoke is history and has made the one iron great.
Ted Ingall
I have heard from Jane Ruston (Rotary Club of Five Dock) Past
President Ted Ingall, had a 90th birthday. Ted is now in care at
Croydon.
District
Conference
A reminder, District Conference, 15-16 March, 2019, at Bankstown
Sports Club, just down highway! Ted not at Rotary, to send around
commitment sheets but here is the link,
https://rotarydistrict9675.org/ The District Conference are fun, I
thoroughly enjoyed last year at Mudgee.
The poem
The poem is back, by request (by a small number.)
In the last year we have had through drought appeals and now floods
in Northern Queensland. Rotary has been and will be there to help. A
time to reflect the bush life.
I have chosen Clancy of the Overflow.
https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/paterson-a-b-banjo/clancy-of-the-overflow-0001006
Just in case you can't get the link to work here
are the first two stanzas:
I had written him a letter which I had,
for want of better Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the
Lachlan, years ago, He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent
the letter to him, Just "on spec", addressed as follows,
"Clancy, of The Overflow".
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected, (And I
think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar) Twas
his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he
are."
There is an actual Overflow. It is a grazing
property in Central NSW. This area is currently in drought. Clancy,
is Thomas Clancy, a client of Banjo Paterson, having drawn up his
will.
This poem captures the vision of stars at night, the sun in the day,
rising and setting, and the natural beauty of the bush, of moving
stock on horseback to sale yards or another property. There still
remain the stars, sunrises and sunsets. Today, the truck pulls up
late in the afternoon, stock are loaded, count agreed, the stock
movement papers signed and the truck drives off. The droving is
gone, but the isolation is still there.
As to the letter to Clancy, a modern day observation, of a traveller
in Western Queensland, is that there are no bars on your mobile, the
phone has not been charged for months, the re-charge has expired,
the message box is full and even the e-mails are bouncing back.
Henry Lawson, a poet at the time, had another view of the bush, than
Banjo Patterson. Droving was low wages, dangerous, away from home,
and lonely. Not a good job, perils of floods, fire and no cold
drinks.
I myself can appreciate both points, let you decide! You can listen
to the poem,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s27QP0QGv0
By the way, the golf course isn’t really bush, but a good place to
reflect on such matters. Remember to buy your tickets to the Trish
Golf Day before it’s too late. Just contemplating the golf course
over dinner can be your “bit of bush”. See https://events.humanitix.com.au/golf/tickets
Charles |