Foundation dinner - a night of entertainment!

11/10/2007

Last week’s Biennial Dinner, featuring former Australian cricket Merv Hughes as guest speaker, was a spectacular success.

Hosted in the Dunedin Convention Centre, the dinner attracted 420 guests with this being a mixture of Old Boys, their families, friends and work mates, and the general public.

Jonathan Usher - magician extraordinaire

Our thanks to the dinner’s major sponsors – Radio Dunedin and HRV Otago (in the innovative hands of Matthew Strang (1987-92) and Simon Dickson (1987-91) – along with DB Breweries, Villa Maria Estate, Cableways Tavern and Liquorland (Dave Lamont 1966-70 and Murray Galland 1969-73), the Mornington Tavern and the Dunedin Convention Centre with the support of all seven ensuring a successful evening of entertainment.

The Foundation’s former chairman, Jonathan Usher (1983-87) kick-started the night with his world class magic act which had the crowd enthralled and intrigued.

Jonathan’s range of tricks, illusion and banter was met with amazement with most of the men wanting to know how he could regenerate a crushed and empty beer can into one full of freshly brewed beer while the women especially enjoyed his ability to turn a $5 note into currency of $100.

Merv was our guest speaker and he regaled us with stories from his playing days and from around the Australian national selection panel table (he was on the ‘phone immediately after the function, involved in a conference call with his fellow selectors as they named their latest side for the one day series against India), commentary on his days as perhaps the pre-eminent sledger in world cricket, and with his thoughts on the game globally.

Merv Hughes - a personality as large as his moustache

Photo courtesy Otago Daily Times

His address was very funny and his personality engaging.

The evening ended with the call on a horse race, from deepest northern Queensland. ‘Merv’s Maiden’ was staged in honour of our guest with some significant dividends paid out to the three successful tables.

It was a terrific night.

Merv also spoke in Wanaka the previous evening, where 150 Central Otago Lakes Old Boys’ Society members and the general public gathered at the Lake Wanaka Centre.

Getting him into Wanaka was interesting. Merv’s Qantas flight was unable to land at Queenstown Airport due to poor weather and carried on to Invercargill. No problem for the intrepid event organiser Mat Andrews (1975-78) though – he organised for Wanaka Helicopters to fly a two pilot Squirrel to Invercargill to rescue our Australian guest and we were underway less than an hour later than originally scheduled.

The Wanaka event was generously supported by Parker Warburton Team Architecture (Ken Warburton 1959-63) and Wanaka Lanscapes Ltd (Don McKinlay 1959-63). The assistance given by Wanaka Helicopters was also pivotal to the success of the evening.