The 2011 PAOCA Melbourne Dinner was held on Friday 7 October in renowned restaurant Comme, winner of 1 Hat in the Age Good Food Guide for the last three issues running. Just as the Association is, Comme is also steeped in history, formerly the ‘it’ restaurant in that of Mietta’s for many years and prior to that the Naval & Military Club, and originally the German Club. The building’s 19th Century framework, complemented with Comme’s modern décor, made the Grand Room a perfect venue for Old Reds to get together.
This year we were lucky enough to have Greg Chappell in the country at the same time as the dinner.
Greg Chappell was our guest speaker and entertained the Old Reds with stories from the schoolyard, to his backyard and then his career in cricket. Greg covered off on life lessons from his days as an insurance salesman through to facing up to Joel Garner. The writer’s interpretation of Greg’s comments was that one of the key reasons he was able to handle the West Indian pacemen and their bounces was largely as a result of brother Ian’s attempts to take his head off in the back yard! A fantastic grounding in early backyard cricket of course saw Greg go on to great things both personally and for Australia in the sport. An entertaining night was had by all.
Dan Pearce (1972-81) offered the Toast to the School with Principal Kevin Tutt taking the opportunity of responding to brief the group on the school’s recent successes and the current Health & Sports Centre development project.
Charlie Benson (1994-2006) explained away his “white pants” event during his school musical to then Toast the PAOCA to which Peter Brooks talked to the Old Reds about the Association’s efforts to continue to improve on our alumni network.
Breaking with tradition somewhat we auctioned a cricket bat signed by Greg Chappell raising money for the school’s Health & Sports Centre.
Matthew Gibb (1989-91)
