We had many guests for the meeting last Tuesday including Heather, Lisa, Penny, Marie, Annette, Vicky and Rosemary. They had all come for the guest speaker Lynley Hood who is actually now speaking this week as there was a bit of a mix up with speaker dates. So all guests welcome again tomorrow night for guest speaker Lynley Hood! Make sure you add guest meals in the usual way.
Team Central Dunedin at Conference 2017
Here are Central members Eleanor, Sue, Andrew, Derek, Vicky and Andrew H representing our club at the conference in Wanaka. Derek will fill us in on their adventures tomorrow night.
With the speaker mix up we had to do a bit of improvisation last week and we were lucky to have Wendy Muldrew (pictured above) back for a visit and she did a short talk about what her travels and what she's been up to in her new job in Christchurch this year. Following the 'Play hard work hard' adage with travels to Canada and the USA, Wendy had just finished a 72hr 8day work week before coming to visit the meeting!
We also had Ah-Lek lead a discussion on ideas for our 2019 Conference in Oamaru. We are looking for ideas for speakers so if anybody has some input, speak out. Previous speakers have included prominent Rotarians, humanitarian stories, business speakers and comedians. It was suggested we could test a few out at the club so we get a good idea of what they're like. There was the other question of why people aren't going to the conference and what would make them go in the future, so we are all ears for ideas here too.
Next week's speaker is Lynley Hood
Award-winning author Lynley Hood is a Dunedin-based scientist, independent scholar and writer. She was born in Hamilton, New Zealand, in 1942 and moved to Dunedin in 1961, where she has lived, more or less continuously, ever since. After obtaining an M.Sc in Physiology from the University of Otago, Lynley worked in medical research before becoming a parent and freelance writer.
Lynley's publications include four books, one stage play, several book chapters and scores of magazine articles. Her first book (Sylvia! The Biography of Sylvia Ashton-Warner) won the 1989 Wattie Book Award and the PEN Best First Book of Prose Award, and was Talking Book of the Year in 1990. Her third book (Minnie Dean: Her Life and Crimes) was short-listed for the 1995 New Zealand Book Awards. The radio version of her stage play (The Baby Farmer) won a special commendation at the 1997 New Zealand Radio Awards. Lynley's fourth book (A City Possessed: the Christchurch Civic Creche case) won the Montana Medal for non-fiction and the Readers' Choice Award at the 2002 Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and also the 2002 New Zealand Skeptics Bravo Award. In 2003, Lynley was awarded a Doctorate of Literature (examined, not honourary) by the University of Otago for "published contributions of special excellence in literary, social and historical knowledge". In 2011 Lynley was a resident writer in the University of Iowa International Writing Program.
Lynley has served as national vice-president and local secretary of PEN (NZ), organised the Wordstruck literary festival, established the Dunedin Writers' Walk and contributed to literary festivals in New Zealand and overseas. She held the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago in 1991.
Remember: It’s your responsibility to arrange a substitute if unable to fulfil your duty.