Vice Captain Lips Out – October 2015

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