The second weekend in November saw the Five Friends converge on Grenfell for a couple of days of planning and bonding. Grenfell, known for bushrangers, gold and being the birthplace of Henry Lawson, is also the centre of Rotary District 9700. This makes it the ideal location for the annual District 9700 executive meeting and AGM with the club presidents. As the District is funding our GSE we thought we would take advantage of their meetings to introduce ourselves.
After a quick lunch at the Loaded Dog Cafe the five of us knuckled down for a few hours of planning, during which we met our team mascot Anim and her joey Lucky. Following her no-show at Griffith and because she managed to buy her team uniform at a “50% off” sale Jo was awarded guardianship of Anim.
Dinner was with the District Executive and their partners at the Railway Hotel. The guest list included more acronyms then you could poke a stick at, there was the DG, the DGE and DGN as well as PDG’s, AG’s, PHF’s and us GSE’ers, just to name a few. Good food and good company made for an enjoyable evening.
Breakfast was a bit hard to come by on the Sunday morning, after a lap of the main street we found the only place open was the Caltex Servo. Expecting a carton of flavoured milk and a packet of chips we were most surprised to find they served a cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs. Despite being double yolkers the eggs proved a bit difficult to eat with 2 forks, an effort which saw Libby take over responsibility for Anim.
Following another planning session it was into our team uniforms and an impromptu fashion parade in the main street for the partners of the district executive. Judging from their reaction we don’t scrub up to bad. It was then into the meeting with the executive and club presidents to give a presentation introducing ourselves.
Thanks go DG Neal Fogarty for the opportunity attend the dinner on Saturday night and present on Sunday. Also thanks to PDG John Egan for taking our official team photos and individual portraits for use in our brochure and presentations.
A good weekend was had, with Grenfell offering up a number of pleasant suprises. Looking forward to our next meeting in Parkes.
Dane
