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