From Scotty Blake, on behalf of the Adelaide committee:
G'day, everyone,
As you can imagine, Covid-19 has played havoc with many aspects of life this past year – this is something that we as a committee have noticed while trying to plan this next reunion in Adelaide. More than a few places have been reluctant to commit to plans so far in advance since nobody is certain when restrictions and lockdowns might come into play.
With that in mind, this committee has had several conversations about what we want, and are able, to offer, and in that regard, we have decided to keep this reunion as simple as possible. The purpose of any reunion is for us all to catch up, have a meal together, swap tall tales and war stories, see old work mates that we have not seen in years, and it is easy to get caught up in trying to provide a reunion that is all things to all people. For that reason, we have gone back to basics with the idea that it will be a ‘tailor your own experience’ reunion that will fit with your own personal budget and time constraints.
The dates are 28 to 30 Oct 2021 (Thurs, Fri, Sat, depart Sun). We appreciate that everyone will arrive at different times depending on personal circumstances – Sat is the main dinner, so you can have Thurs, Fri, and part of Sat to yourselves to do whatever takes your fancy (more on trips/activities below).
Grant Wilson has set up a simple web page (link below) that will run on any PC, tablet or smart phone without requiring any special add-ins. This web page will provide you with all the info you need to make your own decisions about how much or how little you want to do while you are here.
The accommodation is at Rydges Hotel on South Terrace and all bookings will be made directly with the hotel – the hotel has kindly set up a specific booking page for us, outlining rooms, cancellation policies, etc. The price is $149 per night with option of a $20 per person breakfast. Since there are no buffet breakfast options at most places anymore, $20 might be a tad high for a continental breakfast and the committee suggests that there are several coffee shops and cafes within a few blocks of the hotel where you could get better value for money as a breakfast option.
For those travelling by car and caravan, we have provided a couple of links for caravan parks within close proximity of Rydges (I can personally recommend the Levi Caravan Park) and for those who don’t necessarily want to stay in a hotel, the Levi Caravan Park offers some lovely ensuite cabins at a reasonable price. The Levi Park is in a lovely setting and is only a 10-minute drive from Rydges.
The only monies that we have chosen to handle at this stage is for the welcome’s nibbles, the main meal, and medallions (we would like to not have to charge for those but with a limited budget, that’s not possible – the price is still to be determined, based on number who would like one, and we’ll update that as we get closer)
Welcomes nibbles platters has been set at $25 per head and the main dinner is set at $70 per head – the monies can be sent to the RRFFA Bendigo Bank account (details are included on the RRFFA web page set up by Grant.) Drinks will be a ‘user pays’ system – drink as much or as little as you want and pay as you go – drinks packages can be notoriously difficult to set up at times, and prone to complaint so, each to their own.
The welcomes nibbles will be finger foods (pies, pasties, sausage rolls, sangas, samosas, that type of thing) and the dinner meal is a 2-course option of main course (red meat/white meat/vegetarian) and a dessert.
One thing that we as a committee discovered was the difficulty in trying to decide on trips and activities to do while you are here, so we take our collective hats off to previous committees for their efforts in that regard. There is a lot to see and do in Adelaide and to be honest, we could not decide on what activities would suit the greatest number of people. To that end, the RRFFA web page contains a list of links for things that we recommend, some in the CBD, some at Port Adelaide, and some in the wine regions – this is where the ‘tailor your own experience’ idea came about – rather than set activities for a couple of days, which may not be pleasing to all people, you can decide for yourself what you want to see and do, based on age, health, budget, interest, etc. At this point, the committee would like to acknowledge Dave Pentland for a magnanimous gesture on his part. As a driver for the LinkSA bus service, Dave offered his services as driver for a few days and even managed to secure a reduction in the costs of hire and fuel for coaches – again, we were unable to decide on what to offer so that is why we chose the ‘tailor your own experience’ option – again, though, many thanks to Dave for his generous offer.
The medallions, by the way, will have “RRFFA Reunion – Adelaide 2021” on one side and a picture of the now-retired P3C Orion. A stylised drawing is below.
The main event – table cards outlining everyone’s name will be provided on the night and hopefully some that you can pin to your shirt – that way, we can get some photos at the start of the evening to show who is who and send them on to Chas Adlard for inclusion on his firefighter’s web page – we would also encourage others to take photos throughout the night and we will let you know where to send those also for inclusion.
There will be a powerpoint slide show running in the background using photos from Chas Adlard’s web page (thanks, Chas) as well as a separate powerpoint presentation to remember those no longer with us (I think I have a complete list of those who have passed since the last reunion, but I am more than happy to take emails from anyone to confirm names/dates).
There are still some minor details to work through, but we will keep you updated as we go…
Cheers,
Scotty Blake
