Nelson Underwater Club 50th Anniversary Report

Whew!! Boy there were a few members glad the weekend had finally happened and that it was a success and they could now relax or do something else in their evenings for a change.

Yes there was a hell of a lot of background work done by many club volunteers to get this weekend to flow and go so well.

A BIG THANKS to everyone who helped in any way and especially to a few people (who know who they are), that really did put some
big hours in behind the scenes. This was very much appreciated and you now are off the hook until the 100th anniversary and then you will be recalled back into action. As the co-ordinator for the weekend I enjoyed controlling the whip and delegating the work out to everyone (which is how it should be done) although it was noted that I seemed to enjoy this role!

Anyway for those of you who missed out on the great weekend below is a brief recap of how it went. Friday night at the clubrooms saw about 50 people sift in and out over the 3 - 4 hours the door was open. It was a drink and good catch up time for many people and it went down well.

Saturday nights dinner dance will be well remembered by the awesome buffet food display which looked outstanding. The seafood on display, that was collected by a small group of willing club members, was well appreciated with gusto, by most that had the chance to savor the flavors.
We had over 130 attending the night at the Nelson Yacht Club. This was a great response to the hard searching that had been done for past club members from the limited club records. We had many old faces from club days 'back yonder " and then we had a lot of them re-appear again with youthful faces, as we had a data projector visual display running for 3 hours or so, with many old photos scanned
an now digitalised. Again this will be a great record to keep in the club archives for future members.

Many favourable comments were received about the great photo display and some photos stirred up good memories for some.
Speeches and trophy presentations were brief and to the point and the varied presenters we had went down well. Our M.C. (thanks Mark) did a great job in keeping it all moving along even though he was side stepped once on the dance floor.
Nice to get a special presentation and speech from the NZU President (thanks Ray) and we also acknowledged about 28 past & present club members with a wall picture of all the presidents for the last 50 years being recognised.

This was in appreciation of their services to the club. Also congratulations to all the Trophy winners who were awarded in this part of the
evening. The dancing afterwards was a bit 'difficult' with the band not quite getting a beat going, coupled with many who preferred to talk and catch up. I guess you cant get everything right. One minute 45 secs was all it took for Phill Goodall (Mesa) to strip down to his G String and don his full scuba gear kit on his body and back.

An awesome effort Phil and a club record. Thanks also to the other competitors, Johnny, Larry, BD, Peter B and Gary 'Flasher' who were all not too far 'behind'. I hope some of the older ladies present were restrained in their seats by their husbands with this macho man show. Overall a great night by was had by all and it looks likely that club will recover all our costs for the night with a few $$ to spare. So well done to our finance team and to all for running the night without any likely loss to the club.

Special thanks to our bar crew and our volunteer barman "Gerald" as the many drinks sold both nights help recover some of the costs of the weekend's activities.
Sunday morning there was a great response to the call for help with the clean up (thanks all) and for some others they still had a early start with a planned 50th dive trip out to the Horoirangi Marine Reserve.
A report on this dive should be in this mag also. Some recent communications we have had from a few attendees to the 50th have been well received and we are thankful for them. Paul Boulton emailed saying: - "Just a short note to say thank you to the organizers for a GREAT night on Saturday. It was very special to see the closeness and friendships that still exist between a lot of the older members.

I liken it to a family reunion. Well done to you all and thank you again," See you at the 100th party.

Cheers Pete.