Thank you to 79 Rotarians and guests who attended our Melbourne Cup Calcutta evening at Le Hoang Vietnamese Restaurant on Monday 31 October.

Though somewhat complex, the Calcutta saw four winners who owned the first three and last place horses in Tuesday’s Cup. In addition, twelve attendees received other payments. The advantages of a Calcutta are that it enables people to have greater say in their choice of horse and there are more recipients of monies.  After the late scratching of Lunar Flare, the total prize pool, shared by the four winners, was reduced to $2652.50. In addition, a further $1272.50 was paid out in settlements to other attendees.

Congratulations to Robyn Cracknell on her first prize for Gold Trip, Tia Worrall for second place with Emissary, Joy MacEwan for third place with High Emocean and Harriet Fennell for last place (over the line) with Camorra. Sincere thanks to:

President John Welsh for his opening and closing remarks and, with Phil Key, for drawing horses and owners
Phil Key for a fantastic job as auctioneer
Bernie Edwards for a substantial effort in collecting and reconciling monies both on the night and in the days following
Linda Morris who, as always, was great at organisation, selling cakes and collecting eftpos payments among her many roles
Carolyn Heale, friend of Robyn Helms & me, for double checking horse drawers, auction results and associated financials
Carolyn Such for significant organisation, encouragement and her generosity in donating the major non horse related auction prize
Rhonda Vincent for checking non racing auction results.
Sue Voss, our Treasurer, who is still talking to me after she had to make some 16 bank transfers on Wednesday
Dan from Le Hoang and his team for opening especially for Rotary and providing a good quality meal at an excellent price.

Thanks to all of those Rotarians who organised to bring friends to the event. This made the evening a great one; both from a fellowship and a financial point of view.  While the final results are still be calculated the Club achieved well over $3000 from this event.  Specifically, the actual Calcutta provided just on $398, there was over $600 from attendance and well over $2000 from the auction of non-horse related auctions (thanks to everyone who donated prizes). In addition, cakes to the value of over $800 were sold and we received donations totalling $145 (thank you to the two donors).

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Calcutta events are really designed for where cash can be exchanged on the night. The use of cards and the need for pay outs on the day(s) after the event made the organisation more difficult.  As a consequence, I believe that next year we will simply auction the horses (Phil is already gearing up for next time!)

In spite of any difficulties this was an outstanding opportunity for fellowship and once again, thank you to everyone.

Jim Young