Tuesday, 3 May 2022
Once again, we had a pretty good roll up of thirty-seven (37) which included one new member Patrick Morton – welcome Patrick.
At Wacol we were greeted & welcomed by Brian, Terri & Amy, & treated to a wonderful morning tea.
After morning tea Brian provided us with a very comprehensive overview of what was manufactured on site, & then took us on a guided tour of the facility. I was very interested in viewing concrete beams being prestressed. Also, it was good to see the carousel (unfortunately not working) that was used to manufacture 4000 precast rings made up of over 27000 units for the Brisbane Cross River Rail Project. It is incredible when you think how advanced the curing of concrete has come over the past thirty or forty years when you consider that a strength of 80% can be achieved in 12 hours now compared to 70% in 7 days with full strength achieved in 30 days or so in the past. For those of you who are interested Brian has provided us with a copy of the Wacol Facilities Precast Concrete Capability Statement which I could provide on request.
On completion of our tour, we then travelled to the Centenary Tavern for lunch along with washing it down with a soft drink or two.
After lunch members birthdays falling in May were acknowledged & celebrated Viz. Leo Cuskelly, Terry Donnollan, Howard Gregson, Paul Hede, Bob Kraut, John Kruger, David Lynch, Ross Morley & Bob Wiemers.
Special thanks to all who contributed to making this another safe & enjoyable event for all attendees, including: Warwick Dingle for organizing this event; Ron Lewis & Lindsay Reis for loading & unloading the coach & attending to our hydration needs; Peter Taylor for ensuring all members were accounted for prior to each time the coach departed; Brian for his great overview & guided tour; Terri & Amy for the wonderful morning tea & the thoughtful way they went about arranging same with both hot & cold drinks etc.; the kitchen staff for our lunch at the Centenary Tavern; Bob Whittaker ably assisted by Tim Sullivan for their gig as our first aiders; Peter Thompson for ensuring we all got on & off the coach safely at each stop; Michael Bourke for looking after our name badges along with receiving & counting the money etc.; Jan Neal (as usual) for making our birthday cake; & last but certainly not least Ray for transporting us to & from Wacol safely.
In closing, our next event is on Monday the 6th of June 2022 – full details will be advised soon.
Dick Neal
