The matron, Sharon Flint of Prim-villa Retirement Home was on hand at Germiston to thank the Nomads personally for their generosity and the gift of the Sensory room and equipment that was donated to the home.   I would like to add my thanks to all of the Nomads for having made this possible.

The second of my chosen charities for the year 2015 is the Avril Elizabeth Home for the Mentally Disabled. The home has asked for the leaks to their Hydro-therapy Pool to be fixed and for the pool to be recoated. This will ensure that therapeutic benefits of the pool are once again available to the residents. Their second request was to provide Shade Gazeboes for the use of the residents, so that they may spend more time outdoors. This must have been a very welcome in our recent heat wave. A further project is the installation of lights, to light a path to the assembly point in case of emergency. This is a health and security concern as the residents are unaware of night time, they awake after the sun is up and are back in their rooms before it is dark and may panic if forced out of the home at night.

Owl Avery Revamp

The committee has also given the go ahead to upgrade the owl enclosure at “Wild Life in Crisis” my third charity for the year. The current aviary is too small for the 21 plus Spotted Eagle Owls in it and so this is been enlarged. Wild Life in Crisis has been taking an overflow of injured birds from the Free Me Organisation in Bryanston, and requires help to transport the injured birds. We will try to help them in this regard.

Finally congratulations to the Gauteng Nomads on their 55^th Anniversary this year may we have many more.

Barry Bruton

Dear Mr Bruton,

I trust this mail finds you well.

This has been a very exciting week for us at Avril as the very first of our Projects came to fruition when Solis Shade Netting installed and completed the Shade Netting yesterday.  Even our Residents are in awe of the ‘new’ area and came to call us to show and express their delight. 

Herewith attached please find some images for your perusal.  It has given the Home a much-needed facelift of note and I for one, cannot help to find an excuse every now and then to go out and have a look at how it has completely changed the look of the area.

Thank you once again for sponsoring one of our most urgent requests.

We are looking forward to what is about to follow.

Please feel free to visit with us at any time to inspect the finished product.

Kind regards,

Salome Smith

Avril Elizabeth Home for the Mentally Handicapped

This is my sixth report as Vice-Captain already, so we are halfway through the year and it seems to me, that the year is speeding up, as it does in the silly season. The Andrew Mentis committee has been fund raising for about 10 months. The financial year end does not correspond to the term of my office and will close at the end December 2015. Many thanks to all the Gauteng Nomads, and all others who have contributed to the fund raising efforts this year.  As a consequence of this support we are very close to achieving  budget, so please support my last fund raising effort, the very popular Taylor-made Golf Bag draw. The draw will be done at the Xmas cup and to Tony Luyt, we have unbanned you for this one, good luck. 😉

The Ellis Park Rugby Day was the biggest fundraiser this year and I admit that I was initially apprehensive to take on such a massive event. There is a large amount of planning, effort and funds involved in this day. Without the assistance of Spero, Darren, Graham, Sean, the rest of my committee and all the others who helped out, it would have been a massive task. Many thanks to all involved. I am looking forward to helping Sean Ledden with his fund raising efforts next year and would like to take this opportunity to ask the members, especially the newer members, to step up to the plate and stand on the Andrew Mentis Committee.  The duties are not time consuming and it is very rewarding to see what is achieved with the funds at the various deserving charities.

A huge thank you to Antonio Rossetti for his continued support of Nomads and also to Solomon Mahlatsi from SAB for all his assistance. Solomon arrived at the venue on the Friday afternoon with a truck carrying all the tables, chairs, umbrellas, bar, ice and lots of drinks. Without the assistance of SAB this event is not a viable one, although beer consumption was down on a very cold Saturday, Glenbrynth Whisky, Brandy, Rum and coffee were very welcome.

The old Race Day is a thing of the past, as it lacked support and did not make a profit. What has not changed is that as part of our annual subs, each Nomad pays R200 towards the “Race Day Tickets”. This has now been changed to the Andrew Mentis Endowment tickets. This year we have decided to do away with the booklets and to rather allocate a random number to each Nomad who has paid. All those who have paid will automatically be entered into the draw, to be done at the Xmas cup. This new approach removes the cost of printing and avoids a situation where a paid member omits to complete and enter his booklet into the draw. This year there are two prizes, first prize will be a R10,0000.00  voucher for The Golfer’s Club and second prize (sponsored by Glen Dalton) is a  three night mid-week stay at his B& B (out of Season) in Knysna for 4 people. Only Gauteng Nomads qualify and you do not have to be present to win the prize.

One of my final duties to perform is to arrange the annual Captain’s dinner. The purpose of which is to thank Graham, as well as the twelve Captains from the clubs at which we play our monthly games. The committee have decided that, as opposed to having to round up the same old sixty faces and having to organize a speaker (at no cost), why not rather invite all the Captains to a true Nomad’s day of golf and evening entertainment. As a result, this year the Captains dinner will be held at the Xmas cup and all of this at our 55th Anniversary.

Barry Bruton

On 4 September 2015, Gauteng held their 48^th annual Andrew Mentis Golf Day. My thanks go to Randpark Golf Club and all their staff, who assisted in making the day a huge success especially as they had to step in at short notice. A particular mention to the starters and Mellet from Randpark, who got the field away promptly, by the time I arrived at 07h00 the whisky, glasses and milk were all ready for our first tee-off time at a rather cold and windy 08h06.

Both my fundraising days were cold, the Rugby Day especially, so I would like to thank each and every Nomad and their guests who participated on the days and braved the weather. We had many Nomads who, as usual, donated generously with hole sponsorships, prizes and the purchase of raffle tickets for the Golf Day.  The purpose of the day is to raise money for charity and for all players to have an enjoyable day of golf and entertainment. I think we achieved both of these objectives by raising a significant amount of money for PrimVilla Old Age Home.

The golf was well supported with 7 fourballs in the morning field and 32 in the afternoon. The eventual winners of the fourball alliance format were, Mike Fick, Robbie Frank, Vic Hall and Jason De Boer all from Easterns on a score of 102 points.

Thank you to all those who have generously donated your Glenbrynth Whisky and Castle Lite beers after prize-giving during the year. I have been accumulating all these donations, with the assistance of Randpark Club, who are storing them on our behalf. Year to date we have collected 24 cases of Castle Lite and 12 bottles of Glenbrynth  (which was placed on the tables at prize giving).

It appeared that the SAB beer tent was undersupported as there was a lot of Castle Lite left over, this may have been because of the weather or the guys did not know where the tent was, we played the Bushwillow course and the beer tent was on the Firethorn course.

The end result of these donations will be a reduced drinks bill and a more moneys for our beneficiary.

Barry Bruton

The Gauteng Nomads  and before them the Transvaal Nomads used to complete an annual trek to Durban around the 1st of July. There were two reasons for this; one was to play Natal for one of the oldest Trophies in Nomads, the Langham Edward, trophy. The other was to watch the Durban July at the Royal Durban Golf Course and have a small bet or two. The best of both worlds, unfortunately this is no longer possible as Royal Durban rents out their facilities to the serious punters and politicians and by all reports they do very well out of that weekend. It was due to this that the Langham Edwards Trophy was not up for contention last year, well done to Janus Horn for resurrecting a fine old Nomadic tradition. Congratulations to the Gauteng team, both the Drakensberg Cup and the Langham Edward Trophy are in our Cabinet to defend next year, when Natal and Southern Natal come up to Gauteng.

On the Golforama front the Nomads guys and girls worked at the Sun City Challenge, a Winter Sunshine Tour / European Tour Co – hosted event at the Lost City Course, Sun City. It is a lovely course but quite a walk I can tell you. The tournament was won by Keith Horne from Eye of Africa G.C. on -13.

The Andrew Mentis financial year end is approaching very quickly and I am pleased to advise that my charity was approved at the National Management Meeting held in Natal in July. The charity is Prim-villa, a home for the Elderly especially those with Alzheimers. Their request was for an addition to their Sensory Room along with various items for the residents to use. These items have been designed to calm people with dementia and stimulate the senses of those with these ailments. The building work is well under way and the Sensory items have been ordered, I am looking forward to a visit next week to check the progress at the home. If you are interested you are welcome to have a look at their website at:     www.mha.co.za

Barry Bruton

Our third game of the year was held at Parkview and I thought the course was in great condition and a good test of golf. It was the start of the Gary Player Knock Out and a lot of games were played, well done to the winners and to the loser’s, good luck in the Plate.

The Andrew Mentis charity is starting to gain some traction and thanks once again to all those individuals who have dipped into their wallets to support our fund raising efforts. For those of you that don’t know Tyron Zaaiman, it means that you have somehow managed to avoid his raffle ticket sales. Not only is he the raffle ticket seller but also the debt collector for sales made, and not yet paid. For the month of August, Tyron will continue to sell the second TaylorMade Golf Club draw and the Rugby Day Raffle, as there are still a number of tickets left. The Rugby Day Raffle Prize is really worthwhile, it includes a weekend stay at the Fairway hotel, a 4 four ball round of Golf at Randpark Golf Course and a TaylorMade putter.

The draw for the TaylorMade clubs and bag will be done at our Andrew Mentis Golf Day at on 4 September 2014 to be held at Randpark Golf Club Bushwillow Course, the entry forms are available for both morning and afternoon fields and will be distributed via email by Sid Rickhoff in Bev’s absence.

For those new Nomads that haven’t participated in an Andrew Mentis day before, it is an opportunity to invite guests and prospective Nomads to join us. According to our current waiting list, it would be good idea to get some prospective members added to it. There must be at least one Nomad in the four ball. There will be hole sponsorship available on the day and as in previous years, we will be looking for prize sponsors and donations. Anybody willing to assist with either of these should contact myself or Sean Ledden.

The Rugby Day at Ellis Park on the 25^th July, between the Springboks and New Zealand was a great success as a fund raiser and a party, but very cold for the fans who attended. The game was enjoyed by all but was disappointing, because once again we went down to New Zealand at Ellis Park. We have a good side and I am sure they will do well at the World Cup,

Good luck Bokkie.

Barry Bruton