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Commodore’s Notes

Things are firing up at the club with the weather on the improve and the days stretching much longer. We are still closed on Tuesdays but as from the 1st December we will be open 7 days a week. Our Happy Hours on Wednesday and Friday nights are continuing through until Christmas and we’ve just received our first shipment of Great Northern Mid Strength which we are now serving alongside our world famous super cold Carlton Draught.
We are still serving up free nibbles, snacks and the odd sausage sizzle.
Last Friday evening our resident Sausage Roll World Champion Ric Addison arrived with a Yogi Bear Picnic Basket full of his sensationally beautiful sausage rolls which we handed out to all of our members and guests free of charge. They disappeared rather quickly.
At our recent Melbourne Cup extravaganza we had free entry, free chicken and salad lunch, one free glass of champagne on arrival, and a free barbecue later in the arvo with sausages, steak, rissoles, chicken and chops.
If we aren’t the best value for money club in the world I’d like to know who is so join up today. It’s a mere $45 or $60 for a family including kids under 18.
Remember our club house and facilities sitting on the best location anywhere on the Great Ocean Road are available to members for Weddings, Parties, Anything.

Unfortunately I’ve now got some very sad news.
After setting the price of $4 for our famous pots about 11 years ago we have been forced to put them up. As from Boxing Day pots will be $ 4.50.
Over that time we have had numerous price rises from CUB and several pay rises for our staff.
We have been able to keep the price down recently by negotiating a better price from our supplier but we’ve copped a couple of substantial price increases recently and the margin is now far too tight.

UPCOMING EVENTS

AGM Sponsored by FoodWorks, Saturday 30th November @ 5:30pm.
This year we are streamlining the meeting with most of our announcements being emailed out to members and also available on our website so the meeting won’t last very long at all.
It’s followed by fishing competition trophy presentations, an open bar for an hour and a free feed generously donated by FoodWorks.

WORKING BEE

Thursday 21st November @ 9am. We are going to paint the outside walls of the clubhouse so anyone out there who can hold a paint brush please turn up and help us out.
We will have most of the equipment but if you have your own brushes, rollers and trays please bring them along. BBQ and refreshments provided.

 

GREAT OCEAN ROAD GARLIC CHAMPIONSHIP

Friday 13th December. Judging will start at 5pm.
Please enter and join in the fun. Prizes and trophies awarded in three categories
Men, Ladies and Children (under 18)

HAWAIIAN SHIRT 

Wednesday evenings in January have become a tradition with our beloved campers coming along in mass. We all look forward to our ‘Campers Wednesdays’ they are great fun. It was suggested to me last summer that to add to the fun we should encourage everyone to come along wearing a Hawaiian Shirt every Wednesday during January. So we’ve decided that anyone who wears one will get their first beer free. Also each week we will award a prize to the best Hawaiian shirt.

 

 

PIER TO PUB

After much discussion and advice from our members we have made the following changes to our Pier to Pub Live Music Night to make it a lot more enjoyable for everyone.

  • Entry is free
  • Early in the day entry will be for members and visitors but visitors will have to sign in. Members will be required to show their membership card
  • We will have extra security on duty to assist. They will be counting the number of people in attendance and when it reaches what we consider to be a comfortable number we will close the gate
  • We will then let small groups in when others leave. Members will be given priority but must have their membership card with them
  • After 3pm we will stop serving our Draught beer in glasses and go over to cold cans as it’s not possible to keep our glasses cold enough and for our volunteers to retrieve them
  • There will be extra rubbish bins
  • We will have extra toilets outside our yard and patrons will be given a pass out so they can re enter.
  • Some of our large outside tables and chairs will be removed to free up space
  • Our courtesy bus will be operating for gold coin donations
  • Local Rock Legend Ron Holmer and his band will be performing live from late afternoon until 9pm
  • The bar will also close at 9pm

We’ve never had any problems at our functions but I’m sure with these changes it will be a much more enjoyable evening.


RECENT EVENTS

On the 3rd November we held our 6th and final Major Fishing Competition for the year sponsored by Ken and Chick from Lorne Hardware.
Conditions were calm and we had a pretty good turn up of anglers.
Our reigning Club Champ Andrew Clarke won with an impressive flathead 3790 points.
Runner Up was Kaide Love with a big leatherjacket 2840 points and a close 3rd was Joel Norton with a snapper 2530 points.
Alby Dawson who was competing in his first ever fishing competition won the Junior section with a nice flathead 2190 points. Alby is the son of club sponsor and local concreter Tom Dawson. It’s great to see the kids out having a go.
The final winners for 2019 will be announced at the AGM where they will be presented with trophies and prizes.



MELBOURNE CUP DAY

Our Melbourne Cup Extravaganza was another huge success this year with locals and visitors all mingling and having a great fun day.
A special thanks to Michael and Shirley Cawson who run the day and both do a wonderful job. Also a thank you to all the ladies who brought along a salad and an extra big thanks to Ange Quinn for all the work she put into the day.
The winner of our Ladies fashion on the field was Jenni Miller (she happens to be my wife but I wasn’t a judge)
The winner of the Mens was a very controversial one and is still being debated.
It was won by Max Pitt. I reckon he bribed the judges. Or they should have gone to Spec Savers.

FISHING REPORT

It’s been a typical spring with very windy conditions limiting the fishing. There are big snapper about but are a bit hard to find. Plenty of good size flathead and they are on the chew.
King George whiting have made an early appearance with quite a few being caught.
The gummy sharks have been scarce and the Yakkas and slimy mackerel that have been plentiful all year have shot through. The pier has been going off with huge calamari, big snapper and salmon and heaps of grass whiting keeping the kids entertained.
A 4 meter White Pointer was seen swimming around the pier recently and there was also a couple of shark sightings in Louttit Bay. Our resident Sammy the seal is looking a bit anxious.

FISHING STORY

Last Friday night we were sitting in our club house enjoying a lemonade when we noticed a bit of commotion on the end of the pier.
A bloke then walked with a very bent fishing rod all the way back to shore. He then went to the old boat ramp and started to pull his fishing line in by hand and eventually landed a 4kg snapper.
What had happened was , when he hooked the snapper it pulled his rod out of his hands and it went into the water. He was quick thinking enough to grab his wife’s rod and cast it out. Luckily one of the hooks on his wife’s rod hooked onto his line and he then proceeded to get it all back to shore. Somehow he succeeded in getting his rod and reel and very unlucky fish back.

FISH ATTRACTING DEVICES (FADS)

We’ve just received the final approval from DELWP which now allows us to deploy 3 FADS off Lorne. I wasn’t aware until recently that DELWP manage the sea out to the 3 nautical mile mark. When the new authority GORPA is formed they will take over that responsibility along the length of the Great Ocean Road also out to 3 nautical miles.
A Victorian Fisheries boat will come from Queenscliff with the FADS, pick us up and take us out to our preferred locations and then deploy them. Weather permitting we will have them in the water before the end of this month. Their locations will be displayed at the club house and on our website.

 

POINT GREY REDEVELOPMENT NEWS

DELWP have approved the plans and so has the Surf Coast Shire planning Department. The notices are on display at Point Grey and the plans can be viewed at the Lorne Tourist Info Centre, The Surf Coast Shire Offices in Torquay and we have a couple of copies at our club house.
Other than the location of our boat wash we are quite happy with the plans for our new club house. There will quite likely be some objections lodged regarding the demolition of the old Fishing CoOp and the design of the replacement which is being called The Beacon Building.
GORCC are fully funded for their part of the project and with a bit of fund raising from ourselves we should be fully funded also.
The proposed starting date is the end of March 2021.

COURTESY BUS

Our courtesy bus is running Friday and Saturday evenings during our quieter months.
Please be generous with your gold coin donations.
Phone 0498 031 234


MEMBER(S) OF THE MONTH

Barry and Glenice Hayward. Barry from Yallourn and Glenice from Victoria Valley met at the Geelong Teachers College in 1962 and married in 1966.
After years in the Mallee they settled in Geelong and raised their two daughters.
Caravan holidays in Lorne ended in 1981 when they purchased their house in Grand Parade. They are fortunate enough to be able to divide their year between Lorne, Newtown and Noosa. In the early years both were keen tennis players and have premierships to their names. Barry is a life member of the All Saints Tennis Club in Newtown but now lawn bowls has taken over. He is a very successful bowler for Highton Bowls Club and is in danger of having to declare his winnings as a second income.
Golf has now taken over for Glenice and she is in her second term of Presidency at Royal East Geelong Golf Club. Glenice and Barry are keen fisherpersons and own a Quintrex Renegade 4.2m tinny called Whaler 2. Prior to that they owned a Markham Whaler which would have had 27 layers of fibreglass on its hull.
During the winter months they use an Archillies inflatable to continue their fishing on the Noosa River. They delight in fishing together particularly off Lorne in the Lee of the beautiful Otway Ranges.
They first joined the LAAC in 1972 and well remember the smaller club house with the members shower, the beer fridge with an honesty box, the bar run by volunteers, the float (change for the bar) was hidden behind a barrel, the huge electric winch on the boat ramp (brake release was a crowbar) and you could leave your boat inside the fence overnight. Those were the days.
Glenice was the first woman to win fisherman of the year (club champion) in 2004 and has been in the top 10 most years.
Barry has served on the LAAC committee for quite a few years and is now stepping down.
Everyone will recognise Barry who is always in attendance at the club on our busy nights signing in the visitors and Glenice who is always there picking up empty glasses and helping out around the club. They will be missed.

Cheers,

Keith Miller, Commodore

Thanks to our sponsors:

KEANE CONTRACTING BRICK/BLOCK and SCAFFOLDING – Gary Keane
SURFCOAST GARDENING – Kerry Webster & Rob Dalziel