Several members have pointed out that I got the month wrong: the meeting to form the Association will take place this coming Tuesday–which is March 9, not April 9 as I first posted here.
My apologies for the confusion. In any case, it looks like quite a few people were able to see past my slip and we now have about 15 members signed up for dinner this Tuesday at a rather nice venue in Sydney (I will stick to just letting people know where by return email). The cost for the dinner will be $65 per person, and it will start at 7pm at a venue not too far from Sydney’s CBD.
If you would like to join us, there’s still time for me to expand the numbers; just drop me an email at debunking at gmail dot com.
I will try to keep the formal side of the evening to a minimum. We have to:
Adopt a model constitution for Associations;
Agree for a few objectives specific to our own Association;
Nominate 3 names (one of which will be used to name the Association);
Elect office bearers (President, VP, Treasurer and Secretary) and 3 ordinary members of the Committee.
Some other blog members have volunteered to help with legal and accounting requirements, for which I am very grateful. As noted, the Association’s main role will be to administer the funds raised by the donation widgets here and on www.keenwalk.com.au, and authorise expenditure occasionally (with the most urgent expenditures being associated with the Walk to Kosciousko in April). Otherwise we’ll continue to be the virtual community we are now.
March 9th, 2010 at 8:10 am
As both an American and Australian legal resident the association posts have been very revealing as to where Australia is in relationship to the debt bubble.
Steve mentioned he was looking for a “cheap but good restaurant” in a central location. The latest post prices a “cheap but good restaurant” at $65.00 per head. Unless this includes alcohol the price is far above an equivalent US meal.
My wife and I spent 9 months in Sydney last year and were simply stunned at the price of good restaurants. The quality of places at the high end simply wasn’t there either in terms of the food quality (despite the cliches of all food in the US being bad!). Being served frozen and reheated food at a very snotty Italian restaurant which took us three weeks to get a reservation for was an experience I will never forget.
This inflation in the price of entertainment expenses is an overlooked feature of debt bubbles.
I wish I could be at the meeting to watch how many people proudly whip out a credit card and how many pay by debit or cash.
March 9th, 2010 at 9:56 am
Hi Mickeyc,
In defence of our cuisinary prices, I’d better elaborate that I gave up on “cheap” when I realised that I’d need somewhere that we could hear each other speak. That meant either booking out a restaurant in its entirety, or finding one with private dining rooms.
The former wasn’t easy, so I went for the latter, so “cheap” became “not exorbitant with a private dining room”. Hence the place I’ve chosen (I’ll post pics of the venue and meeting on the blog tomorrow).
Generally I go for the cheap eats end of the spectrum, where I find Australian quality a lot higher than I found for similar prices in the USA–places like Tamana’s Indian Diner in Newtown, the Thanh Huong in Marrickville, the Bar Italia in Leichhardt, where you can get a good meal for about A$15-20. But I agree that when you get to the top end, the quality for what you get given the prices here look pretty lame compared to high quality venues in the USA.