Mid Year XMAS Dinner and Drinks - 29 June 2013

[anat0l]

Just to let everyone know that the charity idea is off the table. Thanks for your interest and comments.

 

[AnneMarie999]

Great suggestion though looking forward to meeting the people behind the 'handles'....

 

[penegal]

Looking forward to it.

For those flying ex-MEL, I am thinking I will drive out to Tullamarine, so the usual penegal taxi service may be available around the middle of the day Saturday & Sunday. Please PM if interested.

 

[medhead]

I'm on a 9:30 flight from ADL and will then be in the MEL VA lounge from 11:30 until 13:00

 

[Katie]

We're on a 3:30pm flight down, arriving at 5 (depending on BNE!!).
Wondering if we can make a run on Laduree before checking in ...

 

[beardoc]

See you all tonight!

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Just completed breakfast in Glass. Very nice! Arrived yesterday, mid afternoon, JQ.
Mrs swanning_it loves JQ so VA just might be history! She especially liked being down the back (quick disembaration) and the fact everyone is treated equally.

No upgrade for us at Hilton. No suite, no corner room, but OK for a short stay. Having said that, we may have Executive rooms but I'm not sure. They are nice.....just tiny! No water or GM card in room but they did manage to give us connecting rooms.

Had a great dinner last night with some AFFers and really looking forward to tonight! See you then!!!!

 

[gwilli1]

Looking forward to catching up with some familiar faces & meeting some new ones . See you tonight ;-)

 

[penegal]

Numerous flights to SYD are delayed. I am sitting on a 10 min delay, but yet to board.

 

[anat0l]

Not sure about the flight and air traffic characteristics, but the weather here in Sydney is lightly sprinkling down.

 

[JessicaTam]

Have a great night. Circumstances were against me otherwise i would have been there.

Remember - photos or it didn't happen!

 

[serfty]

...

Remember - photos or it didn't happen!

here Ya go ...

 

[JessicaTam]

Very good. I do recognise a few of the usual suspects. Enjoy.

 

[Inver]

A very enjoyable evening thanks for all the effort Munitalp and Oz_mark put in with the organisation of the event.
It was great to finally meet so many people. The food was superb, the drinks were flowing and the company was extraordinary.
I do regret not mingling more.

Thank you.

 

[anat0l]

Back in the room, after a tremendous night, hope everyone is getting some sleep soon enough

Big kudos of course to munitalP for his relentless efforts in organising this event. There's not enough that can be said of the effort that goes into making events like this possible and of a high standard; so hats off to munitalP.

Great thanks also oz_mark for taking care of other important processes.

Finally, thanks everyone for coming. It was great to meet everyone again, and of course meet some new faces. My apologies to those of you I didn't get a chance to meet or catch up with during the course of the evening. Though I hear the great consensus for breakfast at glass is around 9am or so...



One point of note: a red Velocity Frequent Flyer bag was left behind in glass, which I have taken after we were politely told to move on. If you won one of these red swags and have left it behind, please let me know via PM as early as possible so we can make arrangements to have it returned to you.

 

[Storyteller]

A very Vey nice event, thank you.
the pre- mingle was great. Delicious nibbles, nice beverages, service was just fine from Hilton.
Speeches were well received. Thank you to the Sponsors.
Dinner in Glass was delicious & just as great as it sounded on paper . I had the risotto, the beef & the semifreddo. yum!! The cheese platter was perfect to finish off.
Tony Hancock set to tone at our table with a very nice Shiraz. We saw no reason to change things, so both ends of the table continued the flow of this. Then Ewing ordered us a lovely Sticky to round the meal off. Thank you both.

A brief visit to Marble Bar reminded us of lost youth (& lost eardrums), then we dispersed to our various abodes. Not sure who is more ... interesting .... to understand - a NYC cab driver, or a SYD cab driver!! I am back at my place, enjoying a fabulous view in Sydney. What a great choice of city for one of our get togethers. We should do this again, sometime....

Thanks again to the organizers, sponsors, Hilton & of course, all the flyers. Lovely to see old friends & meet & make a few new ones?

 

[medhead]

It was a great night, thanks you to everyone involved in getting everything together. Especially the sponsors, who make a big difference to the success of organising events. I must say the prize for promoting Hi-viz for F lounge runs is going straight to the pool room. It was excellent to mean so many people, and then realise that I'd previously meet them. It was also excellent to mean so many new people.

It was especially enjoyable to have dinner with Princess Fiona, Cove and Mrs Cove, and HVR (in no particular order). You both made wonderful wine choices. I'm embarrassed that I missed my turn to choose a wine, but I not sure I could have lived up to your standard.

Yesterday was a very long day for me, after about 4 hours sleep. Naturally, this created some concern that I'd be falling asleep sometime around 6 pm. Not getting "home" until 1am is a statement on quality of the company and evening events. I did, however, skip out of the Marble Bar expedition at the last minute.

Finally, I picked up on one of the advantages of "dos" like this in meeting the faceless "men" from the internet. I couple of people noticed that I was having trouble moving around sometimes during the evening. Normally it'd be a sign of overindulging in fermented liquids. But in this case, I was born with a muscle condition that does cause a lot of laughs with the family, but also means I am sometimes pretty unsteady on my feet, not to mention awkward. Anyway, now there are few of you who have seen first hand why I bang on about getting aisle seats when flying and accessibility when flying at times. I also need to offer profuse apologies to everyone who I banged into when getting up from the table. Poor seat choice on my part.

 

[shellthom]

Thank you all for having us both.
We had a lovely evening. I didn't get to meet everyone - which I would have liked too but I am far too reserved to have the balls to introduce myself to that many people of my own accord.
Thank you to those that specifically went out of their way to mingle with us. We enjoyed your company and conversation.
I will eventually get to know you all I am sure.
I have actually lost my voice today - shows how much chatting I am built for.

On our way to room 2 we saw lots of naked ladies in maybe room 5. Did anybody else see these... I almost lost the other half as we walked past, he insisted when we got to the end of the hall (to room 2) we best go back and ask someone to find the room we were looking for - he was utterly disappointed when I said we had arrived... If you didn't see them, I believe they closed the door after his lingering stare so you can all thank him for missing out... I didn't want to mention that earlier lol

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Thanks to all for another fabulous evening of dining, wining (and perhaps some whining....:mrgreen, great company and interesting conversation!

of course the biggest accolades go to the sterling efforts of the organising team and sponsors. Already looking forward to the next event. We're at the airport and managed a fly ahead for midday so a big thumbs up for VA (no whinge this time). I'm also sitting here a bit peeved, as those ladies were clothed when I walked past :evil:. Story of my life.....missed by that much, chief!

safe return travels all....see you next time!

 

[tuapekastar]

At airport, delayed flight (how did I end up on JQ? ) home.

What a fabulous evening, great food, great wine, great company, a real credit to the organisers (not to mention the attendees).

On that note, thanks so much to munitalP, Mrs munitalP, oz_mark and anyone else who contributed, to all the sponsors for the event and prizes, and to Hilton for great service.

Met quite a few new faces and plenty of old ones, and look forward to the next catch-up.

Good as our evening was, I may have preferred to attend the function in room 5 (refer post #218).