March 3rd, 2018

​Hi everyone,
 
The nights are getting better. 
I think nineteen members were present to enjoy ‘shortcuts, quarterly competition and a discussion on how to promote our club. 
We had a visitor Robert, who is interested in acting and keen to become a member.  Great news.
 
‘Shortcuts’ seem to gather strength with each meeting.  Last nights topic was ‘Journey across my backyard’ and what a spread of ideas.
 
Aliens led the way as  they reclaimed some of their kinfolk.  Now we have to be wary of garden gnomes!!!
A flying garden lounge seat took us above a backyard before crashing to earth.
102 steps took us across another backyard viewing wildlife as we went.
An attractive young lady (they’re all young to me) was chased by someone with a knife.  What a waste!
One member takes Melbourne suburbs as his backyard – and why not -it is ours.
The last one took us on a tour of a worm farm. Not so little wrigglers turned food scraps into compost.  Just as well Fred wasn’t there – or any other fisherperson.
Great work by all and boy is the bar creeping up.  You’ve got to have a go.  Doesn’t matter what the result, just try it.
A last word on this.  
One member says the shortcuts has given him a good reason to attend, so well done and thanks to Gary H for putting the idea forward and running it at each meeting.
 
There were four entries in the quarterly competition. 
 
A take on the genie out of the bottle scenario with a tale twister ending.
Aircraft comings and goings from Melbourne Airport.
A young lady locates her biological mother. This left me with mixed feelings about the letter from Social Services.
The consequences of trying to make contact with a large or was it small telco!  Don’t press 2, whatever you do.
 
John Millard rounded out the evening leading a discussion about creating a promotional movie for the club. By now you’ve all had a not from him with the main points. Thanks and well done.
For your information John, two members have already decided to get together and try to come up with a script. Any other takers?
 
One of our newer members made a strong point that he found the old web site was not yielding the result he hoped for.  He tried to make contact, but did not get a reply.  Neither Ron nor I  received a message (I always check spam), but I have had NBN troubles. There is also the problem of verifying the source of a message. Some are quite obvious, but others not so. Perhaps we should think of a phone number so that direct contact is made. Just don’t do a speed dial and wait for me to pick up.  If there is a period of silence I don’t wait!!
 
Thanks to Kevin for running the competition.  I don’t think he was running on all cylinders last night but managed to get through.
 
Thanks to Ron and Richard for a great presentation.  The new computer is going well.  I’m pleased that Ron has help.
 
Thanks to our supper volunteers although it seemed that many members were too busy talking about movie making to have a drink.
 
Thanks to all for participating and making it a good night.
 
Well, there we are. Another good night.  At the moment we are flying in the face of a general trend with many clubs.  Lets keep it going.  We think we are the premiere club, lets make other think so too.  But, remember Icarus.
 
Cheers,
 
Jack