CLUB NEWS

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

BY ROB JOHNSON

Cont. Page 3

THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE BALMORAL BEACH CLUB November 2016 Is sue No3

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Enclosed you will find ablue slip with the new code.Never give the number to a

non member.Your cooperation ismuch appreciated.

Swimming

Athlet ic s

Stor yte l lers & Book Club

Yoga

Bridge Functions

ArchivesNippers

Don’t discard, it may bean archives treasure

he Summer season at theBBC has begun with a big

bang at the newly expanded andtransformed Captains Dinner,known this year - and maybe next,as the White Party. Very wellsupported by members, the‘White Party’ brought togetherelements of the popular ‘CaptainsDinner’ of years gone by, alongwith good music, dancing, Ben’sgreat food, and a new venue so wecould fit lots more members in.Well done to Jenny Hole and herteam for organising a great show.

Summer swimming is also popular- 105 swimmers on Sunday 16thOctober, and numbers areimproving on both Saturdaymorning swims. The Saturdaymorning 500m ‘Charm school’,organised by Charm Friend isproving popular in getting peoplegoing and (back) into swimming.Please come down and enjoy theswims and breakfast to follow!

We continue to look for opportu-nities to inject life into the BBC’sactivities. To that end KarenPanaretto has suggested we do

summer Sunday dinners at theclub. These will be catered by Benin the normal way, and run for 6weeks over summer 2017. Moredetails will be published in theweekly “What’s On” email inJanuary.

Meanwhile Terry Carroll, ournewest Life Member , continueshis plans for the Summer of Fun.For many years, Terry hasorganised this Christmas to NewYear extravaganza of daily events.The schedule will be up on thewebsite soon, and advertised on“What’s On”. There somethingfor everyone, and all membersare welcome.

In August we held our 102ndAGM, where we farewelled andthanked Tim Anderson for hismost recent contribution to theClub as Patron. Thank you Tim!We welcomed John Bagnall asour new Patron. John has been amember of the BBC since he wasa child, and his appointment is avery popular one. Welcome John.

We also saw Jackie Bourn, ourhard working Company Secretary

retire from the BBC Board, alongwith Jan Davies, our Use of Clubchief. These ladies have made asignificant contribution to theBBC, and I thank them for that.Duncan Adams has taken over asCompany Secretary, while KarenPanaretto has Use of Club, andGary O’Sullivan is responsible forBusiness systems and risk.

Our recent New MemberInduction evening have welcomed83 new members to the BBC, anumber of whom have partici-pated in recent Sunday swims.Please enjoy what the BBC offers,and become a ‘regular’ tomaximise the benefit of the club.

You will have also noticed thetemporary “chaos” at the top deck,and in the women's change room.Like most refurbishments, we areuncovering some unforeseenworks that need to be done, so weare taking the opportunity towaterproof and re-tile the topdeck while the work below isunderway. Granted, it is verydisruptive to our operation in thelead up to Christmas , howeverwe will all benefit from therefurbishment in the long run -especially the women of the club.

We have also had a number ofdiscussions with Sydney Waterabout the odour from theireffluent tank vent on ourproperty, and this is proving to bea challenge to resolve quickly.Please bear with us while we workon completing all these worksASAP.

Please keep your eye out forfurther progress updates in“What’s On” in November,and for all upcoming events atthe BBC.

I hope you are all enjoying our‘great little club’.

T

he archives team are alwaysvery happy to get new items

from members. We recently weregiven a box of old papers fromGeorge Franki and in it weresome interesting items.

One of the items found was anold newsletter from 1964. Wehad also recently been given anewsletter from 1952 but weknow there is another versionthat Tim Anderson and CedricCullen edited around 1957. Soif you have any old newsletterswe would love to have a copy forthe archives.

We also were recently given anold stopwatch that was used inthe 1940’s by Cedric Cullenwhich still works. It came to usfrom the Mather family. KenMather has been keeping it safe.Johnny Mather (Ken’s father)joined in 1922 and was clubsecretary and club president. Hisfamily are now in their fourthgeneration of being club memberswith daughter Monika Richard

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eoff won the Sunday WinterPointscore. After taking the

lead with about a month to go, hemanaged to keep ahead to theend, despite a strong challengefrom Tony Arena in the last threeraces. Tony scored nine points inthe last race and Geoff needed toget three points to stay in front.He managed four!

Apart from swimming in everyrace, the key to Geoff ’s successwas his consistent improvement.

This is the best way to win apointscore event. By gradually im-proving, one’s performance man-ages to keep ahead of one’shandicap.

Here is a graph of Geoff ’s laptimes. These lap times are net ofthe wet suit adjustment (i.e. thewet suit penalty is removed beforeestablishing a lap time, thus allow-ing a consistent measurement ofactual performance.)

Geoff Hannan – Winter SupremoG The blue line represents Geoff ’s

actual lap times, while the blackline is a trend line showing thestatistical average of Geoff ’s per-formance: a steady downwardtrend. He never scored more than6 points in a race but was almostalways in the top half of the field.

While he has had a truly greatwinter, I don’t think he’ll be assuccessful this summer.

Tony SmutsHandicapper

The first thought I think I had ofsomething like the 500 was whenI was recovering from injury. I waskeen to swim with people butwary of the race crowd in case Ireinjured myself. I also had acouple of swim pupils that we'rehappy swimming across the beachand a bit wary of going outtowards the yellow buoys. Part oftheir swimming goal was to swimfrom the pipe to the islandwithout stopping much.

After many discussions with oneof these students, Martin Drew,a triangular course was decidedupon which the lifeguards helpedus with and we had our first swimI think in Nov 2015 on a trialbasis.

The criteria to swim was that youweren't in the established club

races already aside from theMasters and that you had fun. Itdidn't matter if you did 1 length,breast stroke, wore flippers, a wet-suit, got out halfway it was abouthaving a swim with members whowere on the same page. There isno point score, I do take timesand send those out and we do

e ‘Charm’ 500have our own bottle of wine(Sobels - thank you to TimAnderson and Peter MacCormick)which I give out randomly eachweek. At the moment the biggestcontingent has been 27 and thesmallest was 3.

The best thing about it for me isthat it has all the qualities of the

Beach Club that made it a specialplace to be part of. Fun, relaxed,no pressure, and best of all a newbunch of friends. The "otherhalfs" who have put up with theirpartners swimming obsession Ithink now know what it's like andhave become slightly addictedthemselves.

StorytellersStorytellers is now in our ninthyear and it is pleasing to note thatthe evenings still attract a goodcross section of BBC members,those who volunteer to prepareand present and those just happyto listen.In the last few months we enjoyeda fabulous interview with BBCpersonality Hamid Rihani, and apresentation by Ian Booth on theKUMANO KODO pilgrimagewalk in the Kii Peninsula in thesouth of Honshu Is., Japan.In October, we had a largeattendance to listen to MaryWilson on her family’s escapefrom Czechoslovakia in 1948.The last meeting for the year on15th November promises to bememorable with past BBCmember Jon Henricks agreeing,with a little arm twisting fromgood friend Julie Goodsir, topresent. Jon was part of thegolden age of Australian swimming(not sure it has ever stopped) andwas the first Australian 100 mOlympic Gold medallist 1956Olympics Melbourne, memberof Australia's finest Olympic swimteam in the last century, 100 mrecord holder 1953 to 1956, triplegold medallist CommonwealthGames 1954 and proud memberof the Balmoral Beach club 1973.Just turn up , sit back if you’reearly enough to get a chair, andbe entertained.

Clive ManceyCoordinator

ver the last few months therehas been much activity in

getting ready for the new displaycabinets at the club. e trophiescabinet has been replaced and anew display cabinet has been fittedin the top room. is new displaycabinet will allow a rotating dis-play of items.With much focus on WW1 in2016 we have decided to showsome items from our archives re-lating to WW1 as well as items re-lating to the early days of the club.ese will be on display for a fewmonths with a new displayplanned for the new year. So makea point of having a look and

telling us what you think.e display also has a “Curiositycorner” for items we want to knowmore about. So if you can help letus know (email archives@bal-moralbeachclub.com.au)We also will be featuring a trophywith each rotation, with informa-tion about the person it wasnamed after.Some of the items have links tomore information (e.g. footage wehave in the archives) and there issome information near the cabineton how you can look at this usingyour smart phone.

Jackie BournArchives coordinator

he Captain’s Dinner took abold step this year under the

leadership of Cathy Mackay andKaren Panaretto and from allaccounts the bold move paid off inspades. e theme was ‘e WhiteParty and everybody got intospirit. e Captain Marty Quinnlived up to his reputation anddressed the part, full naval whiteswith his drop dead gorgeous wifelooking as elegant as befitting a‘Captain’. ey made a dramaticentrance to Roy Orbisons’ equallyappropriate ‘Pretty Woman’. e

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Archives Cont. from Page 1

Archives displayed at the Club

ednesday duplicate bridgeat the Beach Club continues

its popularity with regularWednesday evening play andmonthly lessons together with ourpopular quarterly Sunday bridgelunches provided by Ben.

e winter trophy was decided inthe months of June, July and Au-gust and resulted in a tie betweenFiona Carroll and Vivienne Am-bler, Tony Smuts and David Cay,with Penny and John Boyd worthyrunners up. Our new directorHelen Canaris started with us latelast year. Helen has taken on herduties effortlessly and continues toensure that Wednesday duplicatebridge is a pleasant eveningamongst friends.

We had a very pleasant Sundaylunch on the long weekend, 32members played and we welcomednew Club members Meg Gardiner

and Jenny Hall. Carol and AthollRobertson played well, drankmoderately and emerged victori-ous. A worthwhile amount wasraised for our Children’s CancerSociety donation.

All members of the club who havea basic bridge knowledge areinvited to come on any Wednesdayat 6.45 pm to play in our veryfriendly group. Intermediatelessons continue on the lastWednesday evening of each monthfor the rest of the year. If you needa partner or require any otherinformation please contact theTuesday and Wednesday Bridgecoordinators at bridge@balmoral-beachclub.com.au . If you havenever played bridge please feel freeto contact us so that we can getyou started.

John MatherConvenor

BRIDGE - October 2016

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T night included the Cliq PhotoBooth, where BBC membersshowed off their desire for a selfieand one man band BernieSegedin, got the entire placesinging with his song, “Here atthe Beach Club, Find your fit,Great Vibe, Great People, Greatplace to sit, Balmoral Beach Club,Best of life well this is”. A greatnight had by all. and as thesaying goes “What happens atthe White Part stays at theWhite Party”!!Mark Simkins

e ‘Captain’s Dinner’ goesall ‘Hamptons/Avalon’.

and son Erik Mather and theirchildren all members of the club.

We have a more recent stopwatchprovided by Tim Anderson thatJack Dempsey used to use. It isinteresting to see how thingschange and to compare them tothe new technology of the “redmachine” that we use. We willneed to make sure we don’t throwout the “red machine” when it isreplaced, it may well have a placein the archives and appear in adisplay as we show the changingtechnology used at the club.

The stop watch(pictured on page1) as used by Cedric Cullen andkindly provided by Ken Mather

So if you are having a clean out orhave old club memorabilia re-member the archives as we arehappy to look at all items. It doesnot have to be about the club, wehave had some lovely photos ofMosman and early swimming thathave been put in the archives aswell as some strange memorabiliathat will appear in a display sometime.

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he yearof 1987

is unforgettablefor anyone whowas associatedwith investing.It was the yearof the share-

market crash which changed manylives. That same year, a small Sydneycharity, based at WestmeadHospital, celebrated its first birth-day. CareFlight Ltd, in its annualreport for 1987, described asignificant advance in theprovision of medical and rescuefacilities for Sydney’s rapidlyexpanding Western area. TheCareFlight service had beenoperational for a year. In theannual report, a Peter MacCormickis listed among the organisation’sexecutive as the OperationsDirector. Yes, that’s the sameMacCormick who has inevitablyhit you as you round the buoys ina Sunday race. If he hasn’t hit youyet, be patient. He is workingdown the list and will get to youshortly. You are not really aswimming member of the BBCuntil you have been T-boned byPeter in a race.In 2016, in a review of 30 yearsof CareFlight, Peter’s contributionwas acknowledged in an extensivearticle, in which he is described as“a legend of the West.” They arereferring to the Western areas ofSydney, not the Western areas ofMosman. The CareFlight service usinghelicopters, aeroplanes and med-ical jets to bring a hospital level ofcare to the critically ill and in-jured, had its roots in the Westpacsponsored rescue service, whichwas associated with surf lifesav-ing. Peter led the charge in 1986to broaden the base of the rescueservice to encompass WesternSydney. He encountered stiffopposition from the surf lifesaving

movement, which wanted theservice to remain focused on thebeaches and surf rescue. Peter andthe committee parted ways and15 doctors, 10 crewmen and onepilot followed him out the door.The name of CareFlight wasregistered the next day.“I approached Bernie Amos of

Westmead Hospital and asked forhis support in basing a medicalhelicopter at the hospital, and heresponded with a ‘yes,’” Peter recalls.The following years saw Peterinvolved in the purchase of severalaircraft, organising sponsorshipand tireless fundraising. Theorganisation never looked backand in 1994 Peter was made thefirst lifetime member of Care-Flight. That year he also steppeddown as President. “I feel privileged that my involve-ment with helicopters in Australiasince 1973 has resulted in over50,000 people being rescued ortransported,” Peter said.On stepping aside from theCareFlight charity, Peter decidedto repay the enjoyment he hadderived from the Balmoral BeachClub. He was particularly keen onpromoting junior use of the club andsaw the opportunity in the club’sthen nascent Nipper’s program.“When Pat Morton, who was the

local Member and strong supporterof the club, stood down from thecommittee, there was concernfrom members that there’d be apush from Mosman Council toclose the club.”“I thought that if I could get theNipper program going, we couldopen it up to the public. Not onlywould that give us a strongcommunity-based program but itwould contribute something backto Mosman,” Peter says today.His initial engagement with Nip-pers was prompted by his friendEric Mather who asked him to“look after” the Nippers for a few

TCLUB MEMBER IN PROFILE: Peter MacCormick OAM

Archives on the Portal

weeks. “I saw Nippers as some-thing of great potential for the kids,for the club and for the Mosmancommunity at large,” Peter said.The rest is history. It is nowcommon to see 600 young peopleon the beach and in the water onsummer Sunday mornings, under-taking the various BBC Nippers’activities. It is one of the largestNippers programs in NSW anddwarfs that of many surf clubs.It is a key part of the BBC’scontribution to the broadMosman community. The other area of contribution byPeter MacCormick, is his promo-tion of good humour in the men’schange room. Peter is a joke tellerpar excellence with a particularhabit of telling each member thesame joke on consecutive days fora fortnight. Usually these jokes, ifyou are lucky, have a differentpunch line. More often heconfuses matters by leaving outthe punchline altogether. Luckily,his loyal friends such as PeterNettheim and Tim Anderson,come to his aid and laugh at hisjokes anyway, even though theyhaven’t a clue what he’s talkingabout. An enthusiastic clubmember, a generous friend, apromoter of breakfasts at his houseand year-end charity functions inCremorne, Peter represents thebest ideals of the Balmoral Beachclub. He is a role model for youngermembers seeking inspiration inwhat makes the club the specialand idiosyncratic place it is today.A member since he was a teenager,Peter’s face appears regularly inblack-and-white photographsfrom the 1960s onwards.Peter was made a life member ofthe Balmoral Beach club in 2008and was awarded the OAM in2015 for services to CareFlightand to the community.

Kieran KellyOctober 2016.

ValeRoss HigginsRoss Higgins, who passed awayon 7 October 2016, was the firstwinner of the Jack Cox MemorialHandicap held in 1946. He wasthe son of Doug and MonicaHiggins. Doug was a life memberof the Beach Club. Monica was amember of the Morath family.

Ross Higgins was a notedentertainer famous for his role asTed Bullpitt in the TV seriesKingswood Country.

The Beach Club extendscondolences to his wife Nadine,and his children Brendan, Scott,Grant and Cleo.

Jan SalisburyBeach Club member, JanSalisbury, passed away on 6August 2016. She was thedaughter of a well knownmember, Eric Hart, who hasbeen described as "a Beach Clubtreasure". When Eric died in1992, Jan and her mother,Eileen, made a donation of$10,000 to the Club in hismemory. Jan was a well knownphilanthropist and animal lover.May she rest in peace.

Have a voiceAfter our invite to appear at theClub AGM, the BBC singers arenow getting ready for the nextappearance. In November ourfocus will be Xmas carols but inthe new year we will organise oursecond visit some of our BBCmembers that are in aged carehomes, so our focus will be onsongs that they will enjoy. All youneed to be able to do is sing intune. So do come and join us,we have good fun and give ourbrains good exercise as well.

Reminders for practices are emailedout in the weekly club email butare generally the second and fourthThursday of a month. Email acap-pella@balmoralbeachclub.com.auif you want to know more.

If you have recently logged ontothe Members Portal you may havenoticed a new tab at the topcalled “Forum”. This is a newinitiative which initially is aimedat providing archives informationto members. There are currently2 archives topics

more or can help in any researchareas we are looking at. We willalso be posting more informationon the “Archives content” tab onan ongoing basis so have a lookfor new content and keep an eyeon the weekly email as we will letyou know when new informationis posted on the portal.

• Archives news which has anumber of items from the archives• Research thread – Who wasMiss Emily Robson

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