We did not have a regular meeting last Friday, as we had our monthly board meeting.  The main item on the agenda was the disbursement of this year’s funds.  We were able to find happy homes for all of the funds that your hard work managed to produce over the last year.  Given that the Carols produced a reduced amount this year, there was not quite as much available as in the previous year.  The details will be published when Vicki returns.

Our busy but enjoyable week with the students concluded on Thursday night with a fantastic dinner at North Ryde Community Aid.  As always Helen and Carolin did a superb job cooking and feeding 26 of us.  It is always a great way to end the student week, so a big thank you to Helen and Carolin.  

Wednesday with the students saw us visit Google in the morning and the Sydney Observatory in the afternoon.  I managed to subject them to a really squashed trip on light rail from Central to the Star Casino.  We had lunch at Chinatown and a walk from there to the Observatory, with an ice cream, courtesy of Asim, along the way.

We had dinner at Macquarie Centre with bowling and laser tag to follow.  Thanks to Shankar for helping with the supervision and drop off at home.

Thursday started with a visit to Macquarie University SimHub, followed by a tour of Cochlear.  In the afternoon we visited Konica Minolta.  Thanks to Garry at Konica Minolta the students were able to quietly prepare their talk for the dinner.  Thanks to Liane for helping supervise the day and assist with the talk preparations.  I thought they all did a great job with their talks.  All with their own style, but all well done in a situation often quite outside their comfort zones. 

Thanks to Sandeep for dropping the Strathfield students off on Friday morning.  They all got away on their trains and arrived home safely.  Lucy spent the weekend in Sydney with her aunt.  I have had some very positive feedback from their parents and from the companies we visited.  We will publish some of their comments in the coming weeks.  Photos will also be published shortly.

We have a special meeting this Friday, when we will induct Binoe Verghese as a member of the club.  Allen Horrell our Assistant District Governor will be at the meeting.  Our speaker is Robert Jordan and he will talk about ovarian cancer.

Next week Ana will tell us all about her safari trip, followed by Mak Khalil on the 16th to tell us about his life and times.

We have the Annual Celebration Changeover Dinner coming up on 23rd June and our dine below the line social night event on 28th July.

Pat is keen to fill the venue at changeover and make the raffle bigger and better than ever.  Book your tickets for the Changeover Dinner to be held at Basil’s Restaurant now by contacting me, before the seats are all filled.