It's Business As Usual!

This week is a Business Meeting. The first for two months as the GSE Team visit effectively replaced last month's. We had a Board Meeting a week early because of the public holiday, so there is quite a bit to discuss.

Thanks to Allan Beuthin and Joan Donet we had an enjoyable evening at Mantra last week. I didn't think to take any photos for the blog so here's a picture of one of our potential members instead.

Dave Morris and his wife Precila came to the dinner and he brought the wine he and a friend made. We had a lot of fun tasting the various bottles. It goes under the Pormor label!

I hope you had a very enjoyable long weekend. One of the few occasions when the Orthodox and the Western Easter fall on the same date.

Our speaker programme for this month is a very varied one - congratulations Joan - as we have a retired SA Navy Admiral and a Portuguese Wine importer as well as an equally diverse unconfirmed speaker!

To get back to wine, Walter Findlayson sent me this email just before Easter concerning our proposed involvement with the Rotary Club of Paarl Wine Auction in September. It will be on the Agenda for Wednesday.

Dear Peter,

This email has been delayed by my visit to NZ, wonderful country- my fifth trip!

Thank you for your club’s support & interest in joining our Paarl Rotary Club’s Wine, Art & Jewellery Auction which is to take place on Saturday 4^th September 2010 7pm. @ Rhebokskloof Estate in Paarl.

There will be viewing of wines & art from 5.p.m.

We envisage +- 80 lots of wine mainly collectors items which will be auctioned by Emile Joubert (son of Maureen & Fritz)

Obviously we do not want to prescribe how you run your side of the event!

Our thoughts on this are that we will provide a telephone link for your people to bid on & some sort of audio visual connection. Maya Friederick say’s she will send you a CD that will provide the necessary soft-ware; but I will put her in touch with your IT experts closer to the time.

This will be our eight Auction. Last year’s net proceeds were R190,000 & the year before R250,000.

We will need to sort out your Club’s share of the income.

I will post you last year’s Catalogue to give you some idea of how we run this event. We envisage having between 220-280 people attend.

Look forward to hearing from you with any thoughts you may have on this project.

Enjoy your long weekend!

Regards,

Walter.

Finally, the Video Bar includes the famous concert given by Johnny Cash at San Quentin Gaol in 1969 during which he sang "A Boy named Sue" for the first time. The released version had the language toned down!