Management Committee Meeting Feedback

---- We have 49 financial members of a membership of 74 ---- 

The Management Committee met on Tuesday, 4 February 25 for the first time this year.

ANZAC DAY 25

Most of our meeting time was spent discussing the new ANZAC Day arrangements now that we cannot access the Soldiers' Memorial Hall for an 11 am commemorative service.

We've included the 11 am service for many years, however, the Soldiers' Memorial Hall is being upgraded and while the upgrade is in progress, all public activities have been suspended.

The Committee decided on a new program, the details of which are:

6:30 am - DAWN SERVICE at the Garden of Remembrance, Murray Street followed by a Gunfire Breakfast that may include Two-Up this year

10:45 am - MUSTER FOR THE MARCH in Basedow Road at the intersection with Murray Street.

11:00 am - STEPOFF and march down Bilyara Road to the Hut.

12:00 pm - LUNCH at the Hut.

Arrangements with stakeholders and third-party players who need early advice have either been completed or are underway so that by 25 April 25 everything will fall into place as expected.

As this is a significant change, please advise as many of your friends and colleagues as possible.

Advocacy

Dr Jack Urlwin has completed his advocacy training and is now available to assist people with DVA applications and appeals. You can read more under the Advocacy tab above.

Maintenance and Improvements

We discussed the numerous changes that have been made to the Hut during the past year and specifically over the Christmas-New Year break with thanks to Tony Boyle, David Babbage, and others who worked to update the Hut's appearance.

If you haven't visited for a while, you should be pleasantly surprised at the gardening, new paint job, static soldiers near the flag pole, modified front doors, and some internal additions. You won't see the new glasswasher installed in the bar. You won't know that the kitchen stove is unserviceable and is being replaced.

You may be wondering where the money came from to afford all these upgrades. Most of it was made possible by the inordinately generous donation of Lamberts Wine Estate's Jim Lambert who donated two pallets of wine to us. This followed two successive years when we ran Fashion Shows in conjunction with the then Barossa-based Dressed for Success at Lamberts Estate.

At left is a view of one of the Fashion Shows. As this only represents about two thirds of the room, you can imagine that it was a large crowd. Many came from Adelaide suburbs.

Our members were involved in getting these shows set up and a couple of our ladies actually did some modelling as they wove their way through the tables.

Many of the attendees also purchased memorabilia that we had on display within the venue, so we did very well financially.

Club Wine

Last year your Committee decided to purchase a quantity of wine from Gomersal Wines and this purchase is well underway thanks to the dynamic members of our team who organised it.

Ultra Labels & Flexpack designed the label that appears below and did so at no cost to the sub-branch, which is wonderful. We were all impressed with the design, the background of which is a better blue than that shown in this graphic. 

Between the words, "2021 SHIRAZ" and "The Hut" is a line that divides the bottle front label from the rear label that has a short history of our Hut.

How good is that?

The wine will be available for sale around mid-March and as we spoke about how we looked forward to it, most of us said we had hoped not to wait. But time is going faster this year, don't you think?

AFL Sausage Sizzle

President David has been discussing our members running a sausage sizzle on behalf of the AFL located at the footbridge that leads to the Adelaide Oval. Everything would be provided and we would simply need to provide feet on the ground to run it for a donation to the sub-branch.

Given that we are experts at sausage sizzles, this would be a breeze.

We'll keep you posted about this project.

The Hut Open Day

Your Committee is interested in expanding our engagement with the communities that surround us. 

One plan being mooted is to hold an Open Day in which we invite the community to come visit us perhaps between 10 am and 3 pm to look at our memorabilia (and hopefully to buy some) and while with us discuss membership or just have a coffee, tea or other beverage.

Well, as they said in one of the old cartoons on TV, "That's it Folks".

Don't be afraid to leave a comment below and tell us what you think of our plans?

PS: Don't forget you can subscribe at the top right corner of this page to get immediate updates when posts are made. 

Our First Happy Hours for 2025!

---- We open most Fridays from 5 pm. Visitors are welcome ---- Will you join us for our first Happy Hours of 2025 on Friday, 7 February?

The phrase "Happy Hour" being singular is really a misnomer. 

We have several hours in which we are happy, surrounded by our fellow members and occasional visitors. Visitors are always welcome.

Sometimes we have a major meal to which members are asked to RSVP. These are usually once per month and are very popular.

Other evenings we have a small offering of finger foods that often include sausage rolls, small pies and, ... well, you get the idea.

If you need somewhere to go on Friday, 7 February, come to The Hut for several happy hours. We'll look forward to seeing you.

In the meantime, why not click on the link below and see what new badges or other memorabilia you could add to your collection.

Militaria Available

Outstanding Australia Day Event

---- Will you be our next new member? Check out the Membership tab above  ---- 

Australia Day fell on a Sunday this year and the Committee decided to hold an Australia Day Sausage Sizzle with some traditional Australian lamb thrown in. After all, what's Australia Day without some lamb?

It was an excellent day commencing around midday with around 45 people at The Hut. Most were members and we had the benefit of meeting some new people, a couple from Norway, and some other visitors. 

Members and those who have attended previously would have noticed the upgrade to the front entrance with a new, bright, and welcoming paint job and re-engineered front doors. The propellor has been painted and the year 1946 appears just behind the prop signalling The Hut's establishment date. 

Thanks to a handful of volunteers who have spent hours upgrading our beloved Hut, it's now looking like the place to be, not just on Friday evenings - more about that later.

The habitual and invariable volunteer shown at left who will remain nameless, but whose initials are TB swore that he had painted "1946" with a one-inch paintbrush but our bullsh*t detectors told us otherwise and the editor took this photo as evidence. You can see him peeling back the figure covers.

Everyone present at the event seemed to enjoy the food and good company and of course the refreshments are always in high demand. We also managed to have a few good laughs during the afternoon as our "door" prize winner was announced. 

It was the first draw of the day and while everyone waited with baited breath and the room fell silent President Dave called out the ticket number and our member Robert K was delighted to be the winner. The rest of us sighed with disappointment and took another sip of our wine.

David stepped outside The Hut for a few seconds and when he came back with the door prize, everyone had a hearty laugh. We'll never know what Robert K thought. Maybe the photo of Robert (left) and David answers that question as Robert was the lucky recipient of a screen door surplus to requirements.

Well, no, he was handed a lovely bottle of red wine and the door returned to the shed. Thanks for the laugh guys.

The laughs didn't stop there.

The next lucky winner was Ian T who won a subsequent raffle ticket and finished up with a new, shiny emergency helmet in RSL blue with a flag that is self-explanatory. It kills the rumour that Ian never drinks water as you can see the bottle on the helmet. Whether he actually drinks Hahn beer is a complete unknown.

The remainder of the raffle draws were much less humourous affairs when a few lucky people received bottles of wine and someone was heard to comment, "That's another five dollars I'll never see again" as they threw their raffle tickets into the bin.

Life is full of winners and losers, but it's all good fun at The Hut.

Talking of fun, the Management Committee has decided that we will open The Hut on ad hoc occasions and not just on Friday evenings. This Australia Day opening was a trial event to see whether it would be worthwhile and the outstanding conclusion is that it was. There will be more occasions during which we open throughout the year as well as those commemorative military days during which we always open. 

We hope to have at least one, perhaps two Open Days when we invite the Barossa Valley public and any tourists to come visit us, view our interesting display of military memorabilia, have a refreshment, discuss what we do and why we do it.

RSL Sub-Branches across Australia are not only for serving ADF personnel and veterans, anyone is welcome to visit or join and Affiliate membership is available for those who haven't experienced military service, but who support the Objects of the RSL. You can read all about them in the About tab above.

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Australia Day 2025!

---- We hope you'll join us. Everyone is welcome ----

Annual Membership Subscriptions Due

---- We open on Friday 7 February 25 from 5 pm. Everyone is welcome ----

If you are not already a member and would like to join, please visit our Membership tab above. If you are 18 years of age or older and support the Objects of the Returned and Services League, we're happy to consider your application.