Welcome to you all!

It’s amazing that we can get this number here when so many of our regulars are unable to come. Glenn Ford has just flown overnight from an animation assignment in the Philippines to play in a Rolling Stones retro-band tonight at some RSL or other. Bryan Shedden is resting in Wollongong between business trips to Indonesia and New Zealand. Ralph Farrugia has opened his own restaurant up north and is committed to a big function tonight. Phillip Connole is representing the Australian Government as an observer at the recent US Congressional Elections and our very own Jungle Patrolman in Rockhampton, Jon Cookson, has bought a house and the mortgage that comes with it. Frankly, I think they all have their priorities wrong.

Nevertheless, we always manage a quorum and today the numbers are buoyed by new faces: Bob (Jim’s brother) and Merle Shepherd, Brigitte and Ron Jerrow and their grandchildren Emily and Thomas. René White has invited Diane Nassau this evening who knows nothing of the Phantom. She thought she was coming to an Accountant’s Convention. We also welcome Cheryl’s daughter Karmody who’s come from Victoria with Stephen Baggs.

Tonight we gather to create and cement Phantom friendships and to have fun. Many of us keep in touch through the internet and on the phone but nothing beats meeting in the flesh.

We also gather to raise money for the Westmead Children’s Hospital which has recognised our ever-mounting contributions with an invitation to attend its next annual general meeting. We have decided to forego a Guest Speaker tonight because Antonio is in charge of the auction and has told me that he intends to continue his tradition of relating his life story between bids by telling us about his early attempts at seduction, from age 3 to 35, when he finally succeeded.

Finally, thanks are due to Sérgio Takara in Brazil for the wonderful donation of a very rare badge set and some comics for the Lucky Door Prizes, to Dietmar for the Phantom Generations print for the Raffle, to Antonio Lemos for a colour Phantom drawing for the Lucky Dip and to my dear son Daniel for donating his artistic talent to creating an artwork for the auction. He doesn’t want me to say anything at all so I won’t tell you about his art scholarship or how his teachers actually buy his works for extraordinary sums.

Please charge your glasses, be upstanding and join me in our loyal toast …to Lee Falk.

Thank you and a jolly good night to you all!