Bulletin August 2019
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THE BULLETIN Journal of The Legacy Club of Melbourne Inc. No 3384 – August 2019 th Tuesday 10 September 2019 MELBOURNE LEGACY CLUB CONFERENCE Time: 10.00am Venue: Legacy House, 293 Swanston Street, Melbourne – Level 2 th Tuesday 19 November 2019 LEGACY, MELBOURNE (THE COMPANY) AGM Time: 10.00am - LEGACY, MELBOURNE (The Company) AGM Venue: Legacy House, 293 Swanston Street, Melbourne – Level 2 MELBOURNE LEGACY BULLETIN- ISSUE 3384 AUGUST 2019 Page No 2 DIARY DATES AUGUST 2019 COMMITTEE MEETINGS 6th August 2019 Comradeship Committee, Level 2 – Meeting Room A & B 10.30 am 6th August 2019 Widows Committee, Level 2 – Rob Allison Committee Room 11.00 am 13th August 2019 Families Committee, Level 2 – Rob Allison Committee Room 10.00 am 20th August 2019 Personnel Committee, Level 2 – Rob Allison Committee Room 11.00 am 27th August 2019 Council of Management – Meeting Room to be confirmed 10.30 am 27th August 2019 Board of Management – Meeting Room to be confirmed 2.15 pm AUGUST 2019 BRANCH MEETINGS Monday 5 Outer Eastern Box Hill RSL 10.30 am Tuesday 6 Bayside Highett RSL 5.30 pm Tuesday 6 Prahran / Malvern Toorak RSL 5.30 pm Wednesday 7 Inner Eastern Camberwell RSL 5.30 pm Thursday 8 Northern Watsonia RSL 7.30 pm Tuesday 20 Western Werribee RSL 7.00 pm Wednesday 21 Oakleigh / Waverley Waverley RSL 12.00 pm Tuesday 27 North West Pascoe Vale RSL 7.00 pm NOTES FOR YOUR DIARY th TUESDAY 27 AUGUST 2019 HELPING OUR WIDOWS CAMPBELL HORSFALL, SENIOR BARRISTER Campbell will continue to provide pro bono legal advice sessions to Widows and Legatees in 2019. A senior barrister and former Junior Legatee, Campbell will be available monthly at Legacy House to answer queries, both face to face and over the phone. Melbourne Legacy is very grateful for his support and time. His next session at Legacy House will be on Tuesday 27th August 10.00am - 12.00pm For bookings and enquiries contact Michael Van Leeuwen on 8626 0533 (direct) or email: [email protected] TUESDAY 1st OCTOBER 2019 2019 FORMER JUNIOR LEGATEE REUNION The Comradeship luncheon on Tuesday 1st October 2019 will feature the Former Junior Legatee reunion. If any Legatees in your branch know of or have contact with any Former Junior Legatees who would like to come to the 2019 event, the Comradeship Committee would appreciate it if you could send their contact details and email address, with their consent, to Margret Pongers, email [email protected] with the view of contacting them with an invitation to our 2019 Former Junior Legatee Reunion. MELBOURNE LEGACY BULLETIN- ISSUE 3384 AUGUST 2019 Page No 3 -+FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK Legatee Hugh Roberton Our new CEO, Jo Moloney, will be visiting Branches and Groups in the near future, so please make her welcome and take the opportunity to seek clarification on issues of concern. However, please remember, Jo is following two CEO’s who have brought in significant changes to the organisation; changes with which she may not necessarily agree. Ken Tsirigotis, our Chief Operating Officer, gave an update on Community Services at lunch on the 2nd of July. The Legatees who attended were treated to an interesting and informative presentation. A week later our CEO gave an update on the business which has been followed by a weekly report to Legatees from Legacy House. I do hope you will all read this report as it is brief and informative. The Psychological First Aid training session will be running on Saturday 24th August. We can fit in a few more so, if you are interested, please contact Karen Tillotson without delay. The Club Conference will be held on Tuesday the 10th September. We will need to discuss and vote on resolutions being presented at the LA Inc. AGM in Bendigo in October; I will then know how to vote at the AGM. Another matter to be discussed at Bendigo is the future of Legacy. Our Secretary, Legatee Peter Jenke, has been writing about this important matter in The Bulletin and this resulted in a meeting with some Board members of LA Inc. This, in turn, resulted in a paper which has been circulated. I am currently negotiating for it to be released in Victoria so you can all study it and come to the Conference with questions or suggestions that I can take to the AGM in Bendigo. You will have heard about the Redress Scheme set up to compensate and assist the victims of historic sexual abuse. This is a complex matter which the Board is considering carefully following further legal advice. I will provide more information when a decision has been taken. Just a further reminder that the Former Junior Legatee Reunion will be held on the 1st October at Legacy House. Invitations will be sent to those who have registered their interest with Margret Pongers at Legacy House. Have you taken the time to share your thoughts on the frequency of lunches and speakers with Legatee Pinner and the Comradeship Committee? Feedback would be appreciated. Also, if you would like to share the list of lunch speakers with your Widows’ Clubs and invite those who are interested in specific speakers, please contact Margret Pongers and they can be added to the list for that particular lunch. CLUB SECRETARY NEWS Legatee Peter Jenke Disclaimer. The following thoughts and ideas are my personal views. They are not necessarily those of the Club, its membership, nor of the staff. Whoever made the statement (supposedly, originally a Chinese curse) “May you live in interesting times” – in a Legacy sense – got their wish. Two weeks ago, I was invited by the President, Legatee Jeff Swain, to attend a meeting of the Alexandra/Yea/Mansfield Group of the Melbourne Legacy Club to speak on some of the issues affecting Legacy in general and our Club specifically. My other half, Kerry, (herself Chair of our Oakleigh/Waverley Branch and a member of the Board of Melbourne Legacy) also attended. We both felt privileged to be welcomed in the way we were and to be able to hold frank and open discussions about our perceptions of the state of play in Legacy. We were impressed by the commitment of the Legatees present. It was also obvious that the Group is experiencing a decline in both Legatee and Beneficiary numbers and will struggle to find office bearers in the future. In fact, the Group’s long-term future is uncertain. That, I suspect, is the situation with many other Groups and Clubs Australia-wide. Continued page 4 MELBOURNE LEGACY BULLETIN- ISSUE 3384 AUGUST 2019 Page No 4 CLUB SECRETARY NEWS (cont.) One solution we discussed with the Group is that it considers becoming a Branch of Melbourne Legacy rather than remaining as a Group. This would allow Melbourne to take up much of the administrative burden borne by the Group and allow it to get on with the business of looking after its beneficiaries. Whilst the capacity of Melbourne to take on these additional responsibilities in the short term is probably there, should more and more Groups consider adopting this same approach, almost certainly an increase in the paid professional staff will be required. We’ve already had an approach from one of the Victorian country Clubs to come under Melbourne’s administrative umbrella and that process is well underway. However, the situation which will exist with this particular club highlights what will certainly become a real issue for the Legacy movement Australia-wide. Unlike Alexandra/Yea/ Mansfield - which is a Group of Melbourne Legacy and does not have a vote at the LA Inc AGM – the country Club in question is a member of LA Inc and as such has a vote at the LA Inc AGM. The current expectation is that the club will retain its vote despite ceding administrative functions to Melbourne. Several of Melbourne’s Groups are the same size or larger than some of the country clubs in Victoria and indeed, of clubs in other parts of Australia as well. In SA and WA, there is a single club, each having just the one vote. When similar issues with club viability arose in NSW a few years back, the solution there was to form a separate entity, Legacy NSW Associated Clubs (LNAC - now Legacy Club Services, I believe) to provide the administrative and governance support to those Clubs which wished to join. Legacy Club Services does not hold a Legacy Charter. It does not have a vote. Sydney Legacy Club was the founding member of the new entity and several of the NSW country clubs have since joined. Apart from providing a lifeline to clubs which were struggling to survive, one of the key (and highly contentious) features of the proposal was that those Clubs which joined LNAC would retain their Charter and therefore their voting rights at the LA Inc AGM. The so-called Wollongong motion - presented to the Albury AGM in 2015 by the Wollongong-South Coast Club - was an attempt by that club to prevent clubs which joined LNAC from retaining their Charter and vote. The debate at that AGM proved highly emotive and in the end the motion was withdrawn, leaving the situation as it stands today whereby Clubs can cede their administrative and governance responsibilities but still retain their Charter and voting rights. I have now done a complete backflip on my attitude to the Wollongong motion. At the time, as an in-coming member of the Board of LA Inc, I was at best ambivalent but perhaps more inclined to oppose the motion.