Randolph Riedlinger becomes the 33rd International President in ...

Issue Nr.5 2008:Layout 1 18.03.2008 13:55 Seite 22
22
Some rambling thoughts from the South Pacific.
I was just thinking on how different
it must be in the Northern
hemisphere;
Today here it’s 33 degrees C with a
hot, strong, dry Nor-West wind
which is sucking the last little
amounts of water from the
parched soil. Unless irrigated the
farms and gardens are now
browned off, summer’s dry has hit
early and it looks like we will have a
major drought. Here in Amberley
we only had 15 inches of rain
(375mm) last year, the average is
23 inches (575mm) and our little
swamp fed stream is about dry and
not much chance for decent rains
till April or May.
You guys on the other side are just
past midwinter with rain and snow
still coming.
Appropriate sign; Margaret Dick &
Tina Johns ( he told me to print it)
Christmas and the Festive season
here are summer time with Christmas
dinner often being a picnic on
the beach or at some holiday place
and hot weather food now replacing
the old huge traditional roast
turkey, ham, plum pudding etc., I
still look forward to that but the
better halves (wives) are trying to
make us eat less and more healthy
food.
After having all our 4 Grandchildren
here in the morning to open
presents (No. 5, Estella arrived on
Boxing Day) we went to a gathering
of Tina’s family at her
oldest brother’s farm.
50 of us sat down outside
for Christmas
lunch at 3pm and didn’t
finish dessert till after
7pm, a wonderful family
affair with children
running, laughing and
swimming and the
adults enjoying the
time to catch up and
relax .
Funny how that sounds like 41 Club,
old friendships maintained, new
ones formed; locally, nationally and
internationally; what could be better?
Most of our members have spent
many years in Round Table raising
money and doing working bees for
charities, once evicted
by that age thing many
have gone on to join Rotary
or similar service
clubs and are still doing
great deeds.Our 41 Club
AGM is more of a reunion
of friends than a
meeting or convention
where wives and part-
ners come to all activities
as they are the
ones who have allowed
us to do so much while
in Round Table and we now want to
share our good times with them.
Most of our local 41 Club meetings
are also shared with our better
halves as social events and now we
do very little business apart from
working out where our next meeting
will be held.
One of our Christchurch 41 club
members is the Project Engineer
for the new ocean outfall for
Christchurch’s waste water and
just prior to Christmas took us for
a Sunday cruise on Lyttelton Harbour
to see what they are doing, a
beautiful day and lots of food, fun
etc.Back in August we went on a 41
Club NZ Tour around the bottom
half of Western Australia, a great
AGM,. Gloucester GB 23rd - 26th April 2009
Lyttelton Harbour
trip indeed; Started in Perth with
a meal with the Perth 41 Club then
went east to the gold mining town
of Kalgoorlie, south to Esperance,
west along the beautiful coastline
to Cape Leuwin and then north to
end up back in Perth; 15 days and a
lot of kilometres with 17 Kiwi’s and
Kalgoorlie landscape
( looks a bit like my back garden)
1 Aussie in 2 vans which we drove
ourselves .
A huge country but lots of different
things to see, just quite a long
way apart!!!! Well must go and see
what needs watering; hopefully
there is a change tonight and a little
drop of rain, won’t be much but
will make things look better for a
short while.
Derek Johns