We had a record attendance of 300 at our Xmas lunch for 2017 with a backdrop of historic ANZ advertising posters provided from the Bank. Here is a copy of the Presidents address followed by links to the photos taken by Carl Garley, John Brown and Des Shady.
Presidents Welcome address to ANZROC Christmas lunch Dec 14 2017
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to our 2017 Christmas lunch.
A special welcome today to Shayne and his ANZ Executive colleagues Graham Hodges, Kathryn van der Merwe, Bob Santamaria and Digital and Social Media Manager Darren Sibson. Darren will be wandering around doing some media work for Shayne’s Facebook page this afternoon so we had better be on our best behaviour..
Welcome also to Don Mercer, John Ries , Reg Nicholson, Sandra Street and Maria Natoli who are on my table. Will Bailey is a late apology as he has to have a minor medical procedure.
Many thanks for the generous financial support provided by the Bank to ANZROC Victoria and the other States.
I saw that ANZ has adopted the Agile methodology for Technology projects and has teams consisting of Tribes and Squads. That reminded me of a conversation with my old boss Dick Milnthorpe who established the India Technology Project in 1985. He said to the then Indian head Ashok Dayal that he planned to call the Project Geronimo. Ashok looked at Dick and said Dick; we are not that type of Indian!!! Lucky he had a sense of humour and that the project was a big success.
The Bank has had to deal with many regulatory changes over the past year and no doubt 2018 will not be any easier with the Royal Commission into banking on the horizon. We look forward to hearing Shayne’s response to the toast to the Bank later on.
We have had a busy year with meetings spread across Victoria including Ballarat, Geelong and Woodend. We also visited Caulfield and Moonee Valley but did not see any horse racing. Our meetings both in the City and Regional Victoria were well attended. We were pleased to have quality Guest Speakers including Don the Bush Poet, Shirley and Brian an Ex Journalist and Detective who toured the Silk Road in Eastern Europe on their Motorcycles and Annalise an ex-ANZ Corporate Banker who changed career to help indigenous Communities in Queensland.
I would like to thank Neville Pearson and Gary Mason who have retired from the Committee after many years’ service. Also welcome David Knuckey, Geri Macgregor and Dan Kirtley to the Committee.
Our Membership remains strong at around 960 and it is encouraging that we have attracted 52 new members some of whom are here at the lunch for the first time. Also many members have travelled long distances to get here today and we thank them for making the effort. I met Eddie Forth in the lobby who has travelled from Queensland to be here today.A few of our regulars are unable to attend due to illness and we wish them a quick recovery.
It has also been a year of sadness with 34 members passing away. They were close to many of us and will be missed at the lunch today.
2018 will be the 65th anniversary of ANZROC Victoria and we intend to mark that event with a special lunch at one of our lunches next year. Our lunch program for 2018 will be included in this month’s newsletter. Included will be an event on the Mornington Peninsula in March and William Angliss Cooking School in Melbourne in May.
We continue to support the Salvation Army in their annual appeal and raised around $3000 which was presented to them at our May lunch.
We were able to re-activate our Golfing activities with 2 meetings held at Cheltenham this year. We plan to return to Cheltenham later in 2018 and are also planning an event at Torquay in April.
We continue to send out monthly newsletters and birthday cards to our Members to keep in touch with you all. Despite the Australian Postal system Kathy Trace still manages to get the majority of them to you on time.
Our internet presence has continued to grow with over 170,000 hits to the ANZROC website in the past 7 years. We also have over 350 following our Facebook page which contains articles of interest about ANZ people and also selected articles from the ANZ Blue notes publications including the ANZ CEO responding to a Customer complaint in Tasmania by going there and personally cleaning up the ATM. A more recent article highlighted the work ANZ Technology is doing to help customers with a disability. The latest message from Shayne changing the ANZ Dress code has reached over 880 readers.
Enjoy the lunch and we look forward to hearing later from Bernadette Lynch with her toast to the Bank and the response from ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott.
So can I ask you to raise your glass for the Loyal Toast
The Queen
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In the closing address a Life Membership Certificate was awarded to Gary Mason for his long and distinguished service to ANZROC over many years as Senior Vice President.
I would like to thank the Arts Centre staff and Caterers for making this occasion run so smoothly and also mention the good work Peter Pritchard and Ken Crawford did behind the scenes to deal with the Arts Centre ,process all the acceptances , create the name-tags and put the tables together.
Our next meeting will be at 100 Queen Street on February 8 with Guest Speaker Terry Earle, who worked at ANZ for many years before opening his Art Gallery Without Pier in Cheltenham. Terry will talk about Australian Indigenous art and we hope to see many of you there.
Finally, On behalf of the ANZROC Committee I would like to wish you and your families a safe and happy Christmas and hope to see you at some of our meetings in 2018.
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