President:

President Donald welcomed us to Keysborough Golf Club for the Bill Fitzsimmons Trophy stableford competition, which was our first event of the 2019 season. He asked all present to thank the club for the use of their facilities, and their generous donation of our main raffle prize. It was a very warm summer's morning with temperature reaching some 38 degrees in mid-afternoon. Fortunately with the early start and the benefit of a 'shotgun' start, the members were back in the clubhouse just in time to avoid the main heat of the day. The course at Keysborough was in very good condition. The lunch and the clubhouse facilities were thoroughly enjoyed by the members.

Our raffle is a very successful fundraiser for the club, given the good work done by Daryl Edwards and the irrepressible John Hiscock, ably supported by our Captain Harold Hayes who continues to secure the extremely attractive main prize from our generous host clubs. These funds are used directly to keep our matchday costs competitive (green fees, lunch) so please continue to support our raffle.

Donald formally welcomed Chris Moot as a new member to our Club, having joined us in December.

Number of Players / Guests:

We had a terrific turnout today given it is the holiday season, with 54 players involved in the competition. A late withdrawal for today's event was John Sutherland. There were 3 guests: Michael Hoyle was a guest of George Robinson, Roger Prewett was a guest of Roger Selwood, and Peter Garbellini was a guest of Gary Morland. It looks like all 3 gentlemen have decided to join the Vets which is a terrific start to the year. Welcome to Michael, Roger and Peter. They each received the customary gift of a golf ball.

Please note that when members do bring a guest along, please ask them for their Golflink number. Otherwise provide our Handicapper, Ray Desmond, with a guideline as to their playing standard.

Apologies:

There were 18 apologies this month.
Al Abraham, Tom Buzza, Bert de Luca, John Farrow, Peter Fischer, Rod Goode, Tom Govern, Bill Heron, Karl Lindberg. Alan Millard, Robin Miller, Roland Neef, Richard Potter, Chrtis Procter, Jeff Stevens, Kelvin Tyler, Ray Underwood and Neil Wilson.

Starters today:

Donald and the members thanked David Vine, Daryl Edwards and Harold Hayes for doing an excellent job of getting the groups away quickly given the prospect of severe heat. This threat meant a need to continue to focus on slow play, and to drink plenty of fluids during the round. Please take pride in your club and always ensure that you "keep up with the group in front of you". That is the number one priority we have in terms of efficient golf. ('ready golf')

As previously mentioned, we cannot proceed without volunteers to run these events every month, so please consider helping out as a starter, as it is a bit of fun and you will get to know so many more members of the club. Now that there is a requirement for 3 starters, the need for volunteers becomes even more pressing. Please help your Club.

Membership News:

President Donald gave a warm welcome back to our Club Secretary, Jeff Taylor, who continues with his recovery from a major operation. Good to see you back in the fold Jeff! It was also good to see Peter Ross today, helping out in his role as Asst. Handicapper in support of Ray Desmond. Our thoughts and prayers are with Peter as he deals with his recent loss. Welcome back to Malcolm Turner after a long spell on the sidelines with various injuries.

Donald reminded the members that the annual subscription fee ($30) for 2019 was now due and must be paid by all members before the end of March, sooner if possible. To do so, members can either pay by cash at our Jan, Feb and March events by giving the money to our Club Treasurer, David Vine or by using EFT. If members choose this method, please ensure that you enter your full name and the words '2019 subs' in the reference field so that we can clearly identify the payee.

We will also hold our 2019 AGM after we come in for lunch. The required documentation for the AGM will be emailed to all members within the next week by Jeff Taylor. Those members who are not online will have the documentation mailed out to them. Should any member have any queries about the documentation please contact Jeff, or if need be, myself. Hopefully, we will see a large turnout on the day for the golf and the brief business meeting that is our AGM.

Spurred on by John Molloy, with assistance from Laurie Comerford, we continue to make progress towards completion of our Members Contact system, via the loading of member's photographs. If you have still to do this, and this includes our new members, please see John Molloy. It is important as the Club continues to grow, that we complete this initiative early in 2019. Communication is so important to the wellbeing of our Club, and the photographs help enormously. Get in touch with either John or Laurie by email or on matchday to set it up and they will make sure the job is done.

CoM Business:

Summary of the business matters being addressed by the Committee on 14th January, 2019

1. Event at Spring Valley GC to celebrate our 70th anniversary. Details of costs and probable date of the event were discussed and progressed. Captain Harold will present this information to the members in the next few weeks.
2. The rules of golf have been changed, effective Jan 1st 2019. Different ways in which to educate the members about these changes were explored. Harold Hayes, Laurie Comerford and Peter Ross will speak to the members on this issue.
3. Annual reports from the Treasurer, Captain and President were reviewed and ratified prior to distribution to the members as part of the "AGM Pack".
4. Captain Harold put forward his proposal that we actively seek and encourage Lady Members at our Club, as part of the drive to further increase membership. At the AGM, members will be asked to consider this idea in principle. Committee were broadly in favour of the proposal.

Special Achievements:

In the past month or so, we have noted the following successes (in no particular order):

• On 9th January at Brighton GC, Peter Charlewood won the Wednesday comp with a total of 42 stableford pts (h/cap 23). Great golf Peter!
• Chris MacGeorge playing down at Lang Lang GC (on our syllabus) had a total of 41 stableford pts (h/cap 25). Well played Chris!
• In a similar vein, our new member Chris Moot had a total of 43 stableford points when he played RACV Torquay on Friday 11th January. Terrific score Chris!
• On 28th December Chris Tierney won the 9-hole twilight comp at Maryborough GC (lovely course we're told) with a total of 21 stableford pts (h/cap 29). Well done Chris!
• Laurie Comerford won 'B' grade at Patterson River on 9th December with a total of 42 stableford (h/cap 18). Congratulations Laurie!
• Reg 'the Rocket' Davey followed up his recent hole-in-1 exploits with an eagle at the 9th at Centenary Park during the Friday comp on Jan 11th. Great shot Reg!
• Unbelievable golf from Jim Collins and Roger Selwood, both of whom notched up a hole-in-1. In mid-December, playing at Sandringham GC, Jim aced the par-3 10th at 'Sandy'. Jim and his playing partners were able to watch the drama unfold as they stood on the tee. Jim tells us that his hole-in-1 comes after only playing golf for 6 years. Amazing golf Jim! Roger's triumph came on 17th December at Centenary Park GC when he played the par-3 13th hole. He took out his trusty 6-iron and sent his tee-shot 147m to the cup. Unfortunately for Roger and his playing partners, none of them saw his shot achieve the 'holy grail'. So much so, that on arrival at the green they all headed for various bunkers to find Roger's ball! The moral of this tale is ... "if you're going to have a hole-in-1 make sure you are playing with golfers that have decent eyesight"! Roger, you have achieved something that most of us never get to experience. Fantastic shot!

Congratulations to all our Vets winners and thanks go to all those who contributed the information.

Question time :

There were no questions this month.

Vets Web Site :

As the newsletter assembler and editor I get to do much as I like to the newsletter, so this month I'm going to mention some changes to members web experience and introduce an occasional trivia item.

Web developments

• I've just completed a 'free' course in HTML development which led me to several ideas for making the web site more attractive and better for those who use mobile phones and pads to view the site. Naturally it will take some time to desemminate this across the whole site.
• As our secretary Jeff has been hampered with health issues for some time, he had not kept his home email address database up to date for Club members. He needed an accurate listing of current members to send out the AGM papers by email (Can't do that from the web site yet). It was only a metter of a couple of minutes work to create the needed listing for him.
• Now that our joining policy includes issuing a shirt to new members, the membership application forms have been modified to request a shirt size. Where one is provided an email is sent to Daryl advising him of the new member and shirt size. This adds to email already sent from online applicants to the Applicant, Secretary, Handicapper, Treasurer and Webmaster.
• There is still a need for a member to learn more aspects of the web site and have ability to, for example: post files to the web site, proof read the newsletter. I'm only too happy to assist any member with learning anything at all about the web site.

Trivia item

Most of you know I'm a bit of a cycling nut, and in poking around to confirm my knowledge of the world cycling speed record as 246km/hr I came upon this. These records come for cyclists drafting a fast vehicle

In 1995 the 246km/hr record was smashed by Fred Rompelberg from Maastricht, Netherlands taking it up to 268.68km/hr and last year a Denise Mueller-Korenek improved on that and the current record now stands at 296km/hr

Some other numbers

• Casual weekend cyclist 15 to 20km/hr
• Tour de France cyclist 45 to 50km/hr
• 1899 Charles Murphy reached 96km/hr (60m/hr)
• 1928 Leon Vanderstuyft from Belgium reached 122 km/h
• 1941 Alfred Letourneur broke the record again, reaching 175 km/h (108.92 mph)
• 1985 John Howard reached 244km/hr
• 2018 Denise Mueller-Korenek reached 296km/hr
• 2017 Markus Stocki Downhill 168km/hr
• 2009 Sam Whittingham rode a recumbent cycle at 133km/hr unassisted by anything.
• 2018 Dr Mitchell Anderson set the current outdoor track record at 894.349km in 24 hours at Wensleydale, Victoria, Australia.
• And lastly, Francois Pervis rode 56.3km in an hour on a board track in 2013