|
Once again the Christmas Lunch which we along with other groups manage and host in the Sunday before Christmas was a great success. All club hands were on deck along with many other volunteers at Camberwell High and under Noel Halfords lead we were able to provide a memorable and highly sociable occasion for up to 250 attendees. Aimed at the socially isolated and disadvantaged residents of the Boroondara area it was heartwarming to see so many of them enjoying the day and fellowship with fellow residents.
Santa(looking a bit like Bernie Walshe) came long distributing donated gift packs and John Blackman was a great MC albeit his quick wit sometimes took time to digest along with the christmas food.
Noel later told the story of how at the supermarket he and some helpers were loaded up with some of the food in many trolleys, and in response to a query "what's it all for?" from a fellow shopper explained about the lunch. Said lady picked up the tab, sought no special recognition and only offered a name "the Redhead from St Dominics". Wonderful.
|
Our final lunch gathering was a lovely informal one, with lots of good cheer topped off by guest Ros McMorrow's (AG ) short address on her cooking passion. The tale of her skill and endurance in making hundreds of jars of preserves for sale by her own Chadstone-East Malvern club over the years was remarkable, almost matched by auctioner Simon O'Donogue's skill in keeping an unruly set of bidders, seeking to purchase some samples, under control..jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
)
The Shadow was a keen observer to the impromptu auction which Simon O'Donoghue ran to sell those preserves generously donated by visiting AG Ros McMorrow. A great job Simon and Ros, although it seemed to The Shadow that Simon sold the same jar several times....very clever.
