January 2024

Jennifer Philps from the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) joined us as the first speaker of the New Year. Jennifer, who was a high school teacher in a past life, has worked at CMRI as their Community Relations Officer for over 30 years.

CMRI run the Jeans for Genes fundraiser. One in every twenty children in Australia are born with a defect or genetic disorder.

Jennifer explained what DNA was and told us of the amazing research being done to hopefully one day eradicate childhood cancers and genetic syndromes or diseases.

February 2024

Dr Richard Harris, who is a vascular surgeon, joined us in February. He works at Hornsby Hospital and The San Hospital.

Dr Harris spoke to us about his role in refurbishing Hornsby Hospital and bringing it into the new millennium with state-of-the art operating theatres and AI robots. 

He is currently chairman of the Medical Staff Council at Hornsby Hospital and is quite passionate about caring for the patient as a whole person. He is also very interested in and thoroughly enjoys his role as a medical educator and mentor.

Richard had his novel ‘Imagine’ for sale. It is a utopian look into the future.

In Anzac week our speaker was Noel Phelan, whose first career was a science and mathematics teacher. He then moved into IT with IBM as a systems engineer. 

Noel’s presentation was about the Australian Navy’s role at Gallipoli 1915. He had a most interesting perspective of what happened from the Australian Navy’s viewpoint.

Noel has been a volunteer guide at the Maritime Museum for over 15 years and is a friend of our John Withers.

Also, Noel spent many years as sailing captain of his sailing club. He worked for Marine Rescue and the Rural Fire Service as well as being a volunteer at the Naval Historical Society where he has developed three Navy harbour cruises.

Once again, our Rock and Roll historian Paul Kearney took us down Memory Lane. We enjoyed the songs and video clips of Rock and Rollers of the early to mid 1960s. In the new year, we will have Paul back entertaining us with Australian Rock and Roll.

July 2024

Associate Professor Greg de Moore a psychiatrist, who is the Associate Director of clinical services at Mental Health Western Sydney is also an author and historian. He entertained us with an excellent presentation on Tom Wills.

Greg tells the story of Tom Wills - flawed genius, sporting libertine, fearless leader and agitator. He was Australia’s first real cricketer and also the man most credited with creating the game we all know now as Australian Rules Football.

Michel Al Ters, who has a gym named Club Active in Victoria Avenue, Castle Hill, joined us in September. Michel has extensive experience working with seniors with various conditions to assist improving their daily lives and overall well-being. 

He told us that Club Active provides an assessment of each client’s health and movement ability followed by a personalised program as well as access to a team of fully qualified and accredited exercise physiologists, dieticians and physiotherapists. Michel explained how to access Chronic Diseases Management plans from our local GPs by referral, DVA, Workcover and private health insurance for eligible clients.

Leonie Dillon joined us to speak about OzHarvest. This charity was founded by Ronni Kahn AO in 2004 to provide access to fresh produce and dry goods free of charge to people struggling to put food on the table each day.  She started in Sydney with one van. Today Oz Harvest has 19 vans that deliver over 1 million meals every month to 411 charities. OzHarvest has a network of 1,072 food donors and 1,000 volunteers in Sydney. It was interesting to learn about food wastage and how we can reduce it at home.

Leonie was overwhelmed by the number of non-perishable groceries our club members donated on the day. She took them straight to the OzHarvest marketplace in Waterloo that afternoon.