We reached Casino at about 3 o'clock and visited the showground to empty the waste water tanks and to fill the fresh water tank before moving on to the rally site. We settled in comfortably in the big rigs row.
We had happy hour with some old friends and their neighbours. I was required to enroll some newcomers in the chapter even before the rally proper started.
On Monday we had the Chapter General Meeting. The rally authorities messed us about a good deal by moving the venue from the one published in the programme and then, on the morning of the meeting, changing the time without any reference to us. It took some time to overcome the problems these changes caused and get all the attendees together for the meeting. Finally we were able to conduct the business of the meeting.
The major decision was to raise a levy on all members to pay for the maintenance and ultimate replacement of the computer equipment. This was adopted without any dissent and people were eager for us to collect the money.
Jean was booked into a scrapbooking workshop on Tuesday and Thursday morning. In the event, they changed the format and she got just two hours of workshop and that doing a small project that was on no interest to her at all.
We had happy hour every evening in a big open space behind our motorhomes with lots of old and some aspiring new members attending. By the end of the rally we had enrolled more than a dozen new members. Everyone seemed to have a really good time.
Our Chapter Skit was, as we have come to expect when Helene Procter is the Director, a hit. The theme was the caravan park from hell with lots of obnoxious people making like miserable for the few "nice people". The climax was the "nice people" leaving to go to the newly opened CMCA Casino Village.
On Monday night, after the rally proper had finished, I cooked curry and rice for about 20 friends both old and new. The reason for the celebration was the return of Lance and Gladys Maguire to CMCA rallies. Lance is a big fan of my cooking since we had another such occasion at Mt Isa on the way to the Alice Springs rally. They had had a very bad experience at Alice Springs and had not been to a rally since.
Lance is a very talented banjo player and he had assembled a trio to play, not only at talent night, but also on the street. I had been delighted to come across them in Casino one morning where they were playing all the old trad jazz favourites the street at the request of the Mayor.
The dinner was very successful with everyone well satisfied and much red wine, applause, and thanks coming my way. It was very nice to have such a pleasant evening together before we all went our separate ways.