SCUNA history » Oyez » August 1970
Whee! This is the last Oyez that the present committee is responsible for, since on Friday Sept. 4 we have the ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING. This blessed event will be followed, for those who wish it and still have the funds, by the ANNUAL GENERAL DINNER & Booze Up.
The meeting will start at 6.30 at the Coach House Motor Inn at Griffith1 (not to be confused with the Kingston Pub). Those who want to have a quiet sherry beforehand2 will have time to do so in the usual 15 minutes of waiting for latecomers. The treasurer's report will be given, and perhaps even the secretary's report3, and then the elections of the 1970-71 SCUNA Committee will take place. Posts to be filled are: 1 Pres, 1 Sec, 1 Treas, 1 Lib, and 2 non-execs.
Also there will be elections for various posts concerned with IV. In addition to our steering triumvirate (Ken, Ayis & yr humble serv), we need a secretary, a treasurer and a librarian.
Give your nominations to Val if there is anyone you would like to dob in at either of these elections. Nominations will be accepted any time before the actual elections.
The meeting will be followed by a dinner, which will be accompanied by the president's report and various other offerings of varying degrees of obscenity.4 The feed will cost between $3.50 and $4.00.(It depends on the numbers. So be prepared to pay as soon as possible after the dinner.) You are hereby given warning that if you say you are going to the dinner, you will be charged, whether you turn up or not. You will be called upon to make this momentous commitment on WEDNESDAY SEPT 2, the first SCUNA practice for 3rd term.
We stress that you may come to the meeting only if you so desire. But bear in mind that the dinner will be a bag of laughs.5 If you didn't quite manage to get that concerto for serpent and bagpipes up to scratch for the CJB Farewell, this may be your big chance. (Secretary's translation: you are invited to take part in an informal musicale during and after the dinner.)
Meanwhile, SCUNA rehearsals will recommence on the abovementioned date, and continue apace for the St Paul's Recital and Our Concert (prob. Sept 22)- - Wednesday lunchtimes and Sunday, Union, 4 p.m. as usual. See you then. PASSIONATE love,6
Brown
ADDENDA: (1) IV goers: Orders and MONEY ($1.75 each) for IV photos MUST BE SENT after Wednesday's practice, so come prepared.7
(2) Hartley wants orders for Beethoven screen prints on anything you care to bring along, immediately if possible.8
(3) Jillsie and Chris invite all of SCUNA to a celebration (details later) (handwritten: 12/9/70) at The Residence (i.e. Flat 12, __ Hampton Circuit, Y'lumla.)9
(4) Please find enclosed the New All-Leather Intervarsity Newsletter.10
1Gone now, I think. Ken H_____ was working there part-time as a waiter, and was able to get us favourable rates. (They'll seem extremely favourable nowadays, but of course they were exorbitant for students at the time.) I thought we only had two AGMs at the Coach House - 1968 and 1969 - but here's evidence to the contrary. The only one I remember anything about is 1968, my first: the treasurer's report wouldn't balance so the treasurer was teased relentlessly; Gilbert was elected President with a committee of Ann May (secretary), Sue Baldwin (treasurer), me (librarian), JMB, Hartley [of Garran Hall], Jehn and possibly others (non-execs). I don't remember the musicale at all.
2Standard format for SCUNA AGMs: sherry, meeting, dinner, musicale. Things descended into what Brian calls "chaos and bedlam" very quickly, and there was always a chance that the AGM would be a debacle.
3I was the secretary, and I'm sure if I was supposed to report, I did. I hope the missing archives are found one day - I'd like to see what those reports said.
4Actually, my recollections of the early musicales is that they were of dauntingly high quality. Julian and I sang some duets at one in 1970 and the "old hands" reckoned we really weren't up to it. I want to hear from people who remember what they did in the musicales!
5See Oyez 11 November 1971 (Sue Baldwin) Note 8.
6I blame Gilbert.
7Does anyone still have IV photos from those days? Are you prepared to share them? If so, please me.
8I will of course defer to Hartley's recollections, if he sends me them. There was a screenprint of Beethoven in the middle of the big red kite that escaped from the Union balcony (see Oyez ~13 June 1971 (Sue Baldwin) Note 3). There was a different screenprint of Beethoven often applied to the backs of SCUNA sweatshirts. The sweatshirts were yellow. The stylised logo on the front (two footless treble clefs - did "SCUNA" appear below it?) was meant to be purple, but came out rather grey. I don't know which screenprint of Beethoven is referred to here. I think there was contention about which was preferable, and I think it was between Hartley and me...
9Was this the dreaded martini party? Was it to announce their wedding? Why did we decide to drink martinis, why did we imagine the recipe was 50% gin plus 50% vermouth in large tumblers, and why did we drink so many? Wasn't dinner startlingly late, being tripe and onions, which takes hours to cook, and Jill was late home from work? There was spag bol for the fainthearted, and the spaghetti fell into the sink when being drained, but everyone was too drunk to care. I think of that spaghetti whenever I (despite being now resolutely sober) drop the pasta in the sink.
10I wish! Julian is referring to the first-ever issue of Erato, the magazine of the Intervarsity Choral Societies. The Rob Kay Commemorative Electronic ERATO Archive has been created on AICSApedia. It's possible to download this very issue as a 3.4Mb PDF.