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Our July guest speaker, David Blair, was both interesting and entertaining. He was able
to elicit laughter at regular intervals throughout the talk. David Blair is a specialist researcher and teacher in Australian English. He is a lexicographer who was a founding member of theEditorial Board of the Macquarie Dictionary way back in 1969 at the Macquarie University.

He discussed how to find all the words in the real world and how many words are no longer
used. He reminisced about the days when he and his colleagues began editing the
Macquarie Dictionary.

Our June guest speaker, Susan Ackroyd, was very interesting. Susan spoke about her new second-edition book, “Rhyme and Reason”, which was launched on 1st May this year. It was eye-opening to learn the stories and events that formed the basis of these nursery rhymes, which have been told to generations of children throughout the ages.

Our January meeting saw a welcome return visit by Paul Kearney, Rock Historian: this time speaking about the History of Rock and Roll Early 1960s Australian Hits. Paul showed a couple of hilarious short videos, then began his presentation by providing some background to the beginnings of rock and roll music in Australia. Paul then spoke about the rise to fame, and provided a where are they now, of several well-known singers and groups from the ‘60s along with video clips of their first hits.

Among the videos were `Oh Yeah Uh Huh’ by Col Joye, using a typewriter as part of the backing music, `She’s My Baby’ by Johnny O’Keefe, ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’ by Lucky Starr, `Wine and Women’ by the Bee Gees and `I’ll Never Find Another You’ by The Seekers. A video of John Farnham’s `Sadie’ brought much laughter and comment, not about John or the song, but about the dancers! Paul closed his presentation with Slim Dusty’s ‘Waltzing Matilda’ with members singing along with the chorus. 

The February’s outing was to Cirque du Soleil – Luzia. Everyone enjoyed the company and thought the show was brilliant. So much talent and flexibility was on show by all the performers and special effects of a rain shower. A fun aspect was given to the show by the clown. Our seats were in a fantastic position.

Since then we had several other outings including enjoying the annual Premiers Gala Concert, visits to the Parramatta Female Factory, the Lucy Osburn Nightingale Musuem and the Hyde Park Barracks.

A team of us enjoyed the “End of the Wharf As We Know It” in April and the highlight of our outing in May was a trip to NSW Parliament House where we finished a most meaning full tour of both chambers of Parliament and savored delicacies at high tea in the members dining room. A visiting vexillologist delivered a most interesting presentation on the history and design of the world’s flags at our monthly meeting.