The weekend of 19-20-21 August saw a significant number of the original 87 Transport Platoon members turn up to celebrate a a mateship that was formed 50 years ago in 1966 when that group was formed predominantly from members of 25 Coy taken from 87 and its sister unit, 86.

And what a successful and great weekend it was. The Coffs Harbour Bowls club once again did an admirable job in catering for us for the weekend, what with supplying us with the upstairs venue, finger food for the Friday night and a magnificent 3 course dinner on the Sat night. The club and its staff are to be congratulated on their service for the whole weekend.

Also of course the previous hours spent by Ken and Margaret Sceney liaising with the Bowls club staff to ensure the seamless success of the event must also be mentioned. Unfortunately Ken and Margaret could not be present, because of medical reasons, to witness the fruits of their labours, but because of the earlier ground work that they had put in play, and with the assistance of our good ol’ secretary Jenny Pidgeon, all went well.

Friday night was the normal “meet and greet” where the attendees got to spend quite an amount of time catching up with mates from afar that they don’t often see, like Maurrie Thomson, who attended his first reunion, Father George Desmet who at 84 years of age isn’t quite as mobile as he once was but accompanied by his family, still enjoyed his time amongst old mates, and Brian D Smith from the north coast of NSW, just to name a few.

Saturday morning groups congregated in various places for quieter morning tea or lunch get togethers some went shopping, visiting or sightseeing and some spent more time at the club catching up.

Saturday Night, the high point of the reunion, began with people turning up, finding tables and generally carrying on catching up until the “sit down” time for the dinner arrived. Entrees were served followed by mains and then sweets.

Interspersed in this program were some speeches from President Des Ralph, Major Gen David Ferguson (1 Coy Ops Officer in 1966), the issue of 50 commemorative medallions to members and of course, the raffles.

The Federal Government released info earlier on that they were prepared to issue grants to supplement the celebration of 50 years since the Battle of Long Tan and the 87 Tpt Pl Assocn. committee agreed to take advantage of this offer. Cliff Hodgson offered his association with the Beenleigh RSL to apply for this grant and was successful in the bid. Cliff then organised the basic design of the medallion and the minting of same and the result is a credit to him and his helpers. These medallions were then distributed to those attending and arrangements were put in place to distribute to other members.

Following this the raffle marathon began. The number of items that were donated was mind blowing and the quality of the prizes was of a similar standard.

A list of the raffle donations is listed below.

Quinns……bottle of wine with oriental bottle holder

Pat Jerome ……Watch,ear ring and necklace boxed set

Peter Brook …….Long Tan Coin, Long Tan Book, Rising Sun Stickers

Jenny Hurnall…….87TPT 50 Reunion engraved pens x 8

Jim Gorman and Park Beach  Bowls Club……..5 bottles of wine

Joy Purdie…..Poppy Quilt for the door prize plus  – 

87TPT wall hanging x 2

Floral table runner

Pink table runner

Pink Magnolia table runner

Pink magnolia table centre x 2

Dresden blue table centre

Xmas table runner

Xmas table centre

Xmas wall hanging

Twin pack teatowel x 3

Marie Thomson –

Pine Cone table centre

Mauve floral Table centre

Aussie knee rug

Aussie Farm knee/wall rug

Aboriginal  knee/wall rug

Clare Storer (Marie’s neighbour)-

Chook wall hanging

Kitchen closed wall hanging

Kitchen angels wall hanging

2 x Black and gold table runner with 4 placemats

Red,white and black table runner

Rust table runner

Shirley Hoare-

Double bed floral quilt

Double bed crochet blanket

Red table topper

Blue teapots table runner

Toucan wall hanging

Quilters poem wall hanging.

Pattie Jerome was the lucky winner of the door prize.

Poor old John Pigeon carried the “perpetual port” bottle all the way to the reunion only to have to carry it all the way home again as unfortunately in all the excitement, it was forgotten to raffle it off this year. Never fear, it will be back next time.

Sunday morning saw our bi AGM and the minutes of that are following.

MINUTES

General Meeting

Coffs Harbour 21^st August 2016

The President opened the meeting at 11.10 hours and greeted the 46 members  present and noted the 21 apologies.

A 1 minute silence was observed for our departed members.

The Secretary presented the Minutes from the last General Meeting on the 17th August 2014.

Moved Peter Brook and Seconded Pommie Adcock that the minutes

be accepted as read – carried.

The President on behalf of the Treasurer, read the Financial Report for the period to 30th June 2016

Moved Jim Thomson Seconded Cliff Hodgson that the Treasurers Report

be accepted as read – carried.

The President declared all Committee positions vacant and handed the Chair over to John Neenan.

Election of Office Bearers:

Des Ralph was re-elected unopposed as President –

Nominated by Jim Thomson and Seconded by Chris Curtis – and accepted the position.

Ken Sceney was re-elected unopposed as Treasurer – nominated by Jim Thomson and Seconded by Wally Edwards.

Jenny Pidgeon was re-elected unopposed as Secretary – nominated by Jim Thomson and Seconded by Bloo Dennis – and accepted the position.

Bloo Dennis was re-elected unopposed as Welfare Officer – nominated by Pete Leslie and Seconded by Peter Brook – and accepted the position.

We also created a new position of Re-union/Dinner co-ordinator and Bob Wilson was elected un-opposed – nominated by Des Ralph and Seconded by Peter Brook – and accepted the position.

GENERAL BUSINESS

Moved by Jim Thomson that we continue to Raffle the Bottle of Port.

John Neenan moved that when the Association disbands the Port be donated to the Corp Museum.

This was carried unanimously.

Jim Thomson proposed that we have no Head Table at future dinners, with our invited Dignitaries seated amongst our Members and their Guests.

This was carried unanimously.

It was also a unanimous decision to continue our bi-annual re-union at Coffs Harbour the weekend after or of Long Tan Day.

This being so our next re-union is to be held on Fri 17^th August Sat 18^th August and Sunday 19^th August 2018.

John Neenan Congratulated the Committee and Thanked all those who donated Raffle Items which raised $650.00 with Thanks to the hard working ticket sellers – Lyn Hatton, Michelle Englund and Jesse Quinn.

Yvonne Englund manned the merchandise table of caps, writing pads and stickers and raised in access of $800.00.

Jenny Morcom proposed the Secretary to organise flowers to be delivered to Ken and Marg Sceney for the faultless organisation of our very successfull re-union.

This was carried unanimously.

There being no further business The President closed the meeting at 11.45am.

Only one drawback over the whole weekend was the fact that a one or two people had notified their intention to attend but at the last moment for whatever reason, failed to attend and also failed to notify anyone.

Firstly, everyone was sorry that you couldn’t make it, but more importantly, everyone else had to cover the cost of the meals of those people who failed to lodge apologies, as the club charge according to the numbers given to them two days prior to the function! Perhaps the answer to this conundrum sadly may be in future to ask for prepayment with bookings

Following is a list of the attendees for the dinner on the Saturday night.

In the group photograph you may note that some of these attendees were not present on the Sunday for the mass photo shoot so I will endeavour to include them in the next lot of photos that I download whenever that occurs.

87 attendanceL ROLL FOR 2016

ADCOCK Richard & Sue

BROOK PETER

COLLARD BETTY

CURTIS CHRIS & YOKI

DENNIS BLOO & WENDY

DESMIT GEORGE + (family carers)  WARREN & COLLLEEN

EDWARDS WALLY & SANDRA + LORNA &  NOEL  & HEATHER

ENGLUND BRIAN & YVONNE

ENGLUND MICHELLE+ HEATH,  SAASHA

FERGUSON DAVE

GORMAN JIM & HELEN (Park Beach Bowls Club.)

HALLAM ROBERT & JENNY

HATTON LYN + DEBBIE &  NOEL

HANISCH ROB + PAMELA

HENDERSON JEANETTE

HICKEY BLUE

HODGSON CLIFF & SHIRLEY

HOARE JOHN & SHIRLEY

HORNER JOHN

HURNALL JENNY

HUTLEY GLEN & PATSY

JEROME PAT

LESLIE PETE & DOT

MARCELINO ANNA & CHRIS

MORCOM JENNY

MULVAY PAUL & ANNE

NEENAN JOHN

PICKERING MERV &  daughter  TRACEY

PIDGEON JOHN & JENNY

PURDIE KEN & JOY

QUINN DENNIS, JO, JESSE & MEGAN

RALPH DES & MARGARET

SMITH BRIAN D. + (son in law) TIM

SPRUCE JOHN

SMITH CATHERINE + CAROLYN + MARGARETANNE FREDDIE

THOMSON MAURIE

THOMPSON JIM & MARIE

WICKS RON & MARDI

WILSON BOB & ADRIANNA

G’day folks,

My daughter Joanna has now been in hospital for over three weeks, still being fed intravenously after a quite serious operation.  Janet is spending hours at the hospital every day and will have to supply home nursing for Joanna when she is released.  Consequently, I will be attending the reunion unaccompanied.

Yours aye,

John N.

If you know someone or at least have contact with someone who is not on the current
 list of attendees(see previous post) and that you think may intend to be coming 
along, now is the time to remind them to put their names forward.

The reunion is drawing closer and as it does so too does the necessity to finalise
the data to pass on to the caterers.
With only about 6 weeks before our reunion Ken is already organising the final numbers 
attending and any special dietary requirements needed at the Sat night dinner.
If there are any amendments to those attending or you or any of your party are
 on a special diet please contact Ken or I via email or phone.

Many thanks, looking forward to seeing you all - Jenny

BRISBANE GET TOGETHER.

All welcome

I have decided that we need another get together ASP as we are not getting any younger so I would like to suggest that on Sunday 22^nd of May time 1200 hrs. we all gather like the old days for a few beers and a yarn or two, At this point in time I suggest the Woody point hotel, its central and easy to get to and from for most.

I am sure I can find an old brick or two to raffle.

Cliff. Hodgson   ( Dongers)

We are inviting anyone who is in Melbourne for Anzac Day to join us.
For those wanting to march they take off at 9.17am and 87 will march after 86 and 85
respectively behind the RAASC banner and I think they line up in Flinders Street but
not certain at this point.
Following the march we will make our way down to Bells Hotel Cnr Coventry and Moray 
Streets South Melbourne for lunch. 
Those marching will be quite early at the hotel where you will be able to get coffee
but no alcohol to be served until 12 noon.
Please give your number attending or any queries to Yvonne Englund on 8768 778 
or email bye87@optusnet.com.au 
Look forward to seeing everyone on the day.