St Thomas More's Parish

Monday, 3 February 2025

We had another excellent roll up of forty-three (43) for this our first event for 2025 which included one (1) new member Bill Henry – Welcome Bill.

Following our usual meet & greet along with our safety & general briefings we loaded up & travelled to Allora for smoko.

For Safety & Efficiency Purposes we fine-tuned our Smoko Set-up, as follows:

• Freshly made sandwiches are now packed & stored in smaller tupper ware boxes for transport in the coach – to prevent squashing etc. in transit.
• Two members are now allocated for dispensing the hot water for tea & coffee into members’ cups – to avoid accidents.
• Tea & coffee making ingredients are now set up in the middle of the Hot Water Table – facilitating members to queue either side for hot water etc.
• Sandwich boxes are now dispersed onto a number of tables – to improve access & reduce congestion.

I am happy to report that as it worked, we plan to continue with it.

For your information, the Performance Indicator we are working to is that all members get their cuppa & smoko in a reasonable time frame with no accidents. 

Well done to all who contributed to making our new set up work.

After smoko we loaded up once again & travelled onto the Heritage Rodeo Centre in Warwick where we were greeted & welcomed by Darryl Kong our guide.

Darryl commenced with an overview of the centre & then took us on a tour covering the honour boards & memorabilia etc. including a couple of chutes. Based on the interest shown through the Q & A, along with feedback from members, I am satisfied that all attendees enjoyed themselves. In fact, most including myself were quite surprised with what we saw there, particularly when we were totally unaware that the centre existed until our fellow member Derek Phillips brought it to our attention in December.

From my own perspective, as an avid annual attender of the Winton Rodeo through the 1950’s & 60’s, I found reading the Honour Boards & seeing the names of a lot of the riders featured there that were household names in those days brought back fond memories for me. The names that I remembered in particular, include – Lindsay Black, Bonny Young, Chilla Seeney, Wally Woods & wally Mailman.

I have attached copies of the Honour Board captions for Wally Woods & Chilla Seeney. I attended the World Championship Rodeo in Winton in 1958 & saw Wally Woods win his World Championship Saddle Bronc Title. Also, I have attached the Caption for Ray Hermann the most capped rider of them all (He won seven National Bronc Riding Championships). Whilst I never saw him ride, I saw plenty of him when he was a small boy playing with my younger cousins in Winton. To finish off, our guide himself was obviously no mean rider, as he won one of the most prestigious Bronc Riding Events in the World at Calgary Stampede. I found out from chatting to him that he is a wheelwright by trade & is currently involved in restoring/refurbishing wagon wheels in the Waltzing Matilda Museum in Winton – a very interesting man to have a chat with.

After lunch we acknowledged & celebrated birthdays falling in both January & February (also some special milestones) in our usual manner with birthday cake etc. viz.

January

Robert Ball, Gary Batts, Tom Duff, Doug Gordon, Roy Hall, John Hertzig, Peter McDonald, Tony McKeon, Doug Meiklejohn, Ian Morgan, Patrick Morton, Lindsay Reis, David Robinson, Neville Sarquis, Noel Stenzel, Tim Sullivan, Mark Tranter, Alan Webb & Peter Weinthal.

February

Allan Bagley, Roger Britton, Stan Carter, Phil Cash, Errol Chase, Ken Dale, John Doherty, Evan Fairley, Kevin Flanagan, Sandy Fraser, Tom McMahon, Bernie Moran, Mark Rowland, Ray Taylor, Greg Ticehurst, Peter Tierney & Tony Wind.

Milestones

70^th – Sandy Fraser & Alan Webb.

80^th – Bernie Moran.

90^th – John Doherty, Lindsay Reis & Noel Stenzel.

In closing, special thanks to those who contributed to making this another safe & enjoyable event for all attendees, including:

• Warwick Dingle & Derek Phillips – For organising this event.
• Darryl Kong – For an excellent guided tour & a very interesting & informative Q & A Session – Well done & most appreciated.
• Lorraine Betros – For providing us with a variety of freshly made sandwiches.
• Staff at the R S L – For a great lunch along with our own private room.
• Warwick Dingle – For being on duty as our Trusty First Aid Officer along with Safety Briefing; & for his usual gig as head counter ensuring we didn’t leave anybody behind at each stop.
• Peter Thompson – For his usual Gig as our coach doorman ensuring we all were able to get off & on the coach safely at each stop.
• Michael Bourke & Russell Mauch – For looking after our finances & name badges, & Russell for the receipting & banking of our surplus cash.
• Warwick Dingle, Russell Mauch & Michael Bourke – For assisting with delivery of our meals along with the cutting up & serving of our birthday cake.
• Ron Lewis, Lindsay Reis & Eric Canning – The three musketeers for their usual gig of looking after our hydration & hygiene needs with bottled water & handwash respectively, along with loading & unloading of the coach, as required.
• Rowdy Reid, Tim Blades & Mark Rowland – For dispensing the hot water at smoko.
• Jan Neal – For making our much-appreciated birthday cake.
• Nick Peters – Our favourite driver for transporting us to & from Warwick, safely.
• Peter Taylor & Warwick Dingle – For sharing their photos with us.

Dick Neal
12 February 2025