The bowlers finished early Saturday afternoon, to get home and scrub up in time for the night’s 50th. An optional 60’s/70’s dress-up was suggested, and a varied bunch of individuals turned up in gear that made some of them unrecognisable. Actually, some of them looked even better than normal!
As requested, we were delighted that everybody turned up before 7pm, and Presidents Ross and Kay made them all welcome. The surprise MC was announced as Paul Hogan (aka Crocodile Dundee), as he came through the door behind a rebellious flying crocodile.
Our MC then read out the programme, told some ridiculous jokes and had the quiz sheets handed out. The quiz winners were the most unlikely intelligent table consisting of the Wilsons, the Jamieson’s, the Watkins and the Fitzpatrick’s.
The dress-up judging was done by our CEO Jason Read and his wife Emily, with the winners being Jenny Tuckerman looking delightful and Phil Crocker rather ‘iffy’ with his enormous black hairdo.
A big thank you for all those that made the dress-up effort which made the evening fun for all.
We had 4 guest speakers, commencing with Cliff Johnston, who mentioned interesting scenarios of life in the '60s, but mainly about the efforts required to even find enough people in the '60s to form a Club and then, where to locate?
Next speaker was Keith Robinson, who was even warned about a possible timed bell scenario if his speech was prolonged. For those that were able to stay awake for the hour, Keith relayed some interesting, funny and historical facts about the early days after the Club was formed.
Our 3rd Club speaker was Margaret Wighton, who with her quieter speech delivery told some historical and also some naughty scenarios of our lady bowlers.
Our 4th speaker was our Chairman Bill Austin who appeared to know more about the general history of bowling than our bowlers. Bill referred to the bowling community gradually reducing in many places, but that he was delighted that we had a full house of positive people here tonight enjoying themselves. He also left us with the thought of the debt that we owe to those tireless committees before us, who have created what we have today.
When you talk about raffles . .. how good were the ones arranged and packed by Kay and Angela Jones, from what they purchased and the appreciated donated ones from the Club. On top of that, Marion Corrigan and Rod Wright (who cleverly decided not to attend) generously donated additional prizes.
A beautiful 50th Birthday cake was supplied graciously by the Bistro. The cake was cut by 2 original lady bowlers, Joy Walker and Audrey King and they were then ‘forced’ by President Ross to blow the candles out and follow him in a rendition of Happy Birthday. The cake was later distributed on plates to the tables.
The crowd were surprisingly well behaved with no one thrown out this year, so we may have another 50th next year, seeing as this one seemed to work!
David Wilson did an excellent job when called upon to close the proceedings, as Ross, Kay and Max didn’t want to go home.
The night we hope was fun, the meal excellent and the company ... the Friendliest.
. . . . One of the crowd
View the photo album (courtesy of Ian Corke) from the evening here: https://blog.demaj.com.au/50thPics
Congratulations to everyone who contributed to a great night.