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With the incredible
amount of commercial and federal government involvement in areas
of service, profit making, and government cost cutting, a win is
less likely than a compromise.
One of the founders
of the M.P.A. and our first president was a resident named Geoff
Bowden. Everybody residing in Mandalay or rather on the island of
Mandalay, during the 1974 floods, will remember Geoff and his boat
crew who evacuated people when the official rescue teams
considered it too dangerous to try to get a boat across the raging
current.
One of the boat
crew was badly hurt, the result of being dragged through a barbed
wire fence while securing the boat, and Geoff's boat wasn't much
good after it was "beached" a multitude of times on the
bitumen at the high tide mark not far from "Seven Oaks".
After twenty
something years, Geoff moved from Mandalay, but was awarded
honorary membership of the association he founded.
It is rare for associations of this
type to exist for twenty years.
It is also a fact
that associations that have existed for a long time can achieve a
lot more than newly formed ones.
The rules of the
game have been learned, the contacts have been made; and the paths
through the bureaucratic jungle have been explored.
For anybody who
feels that the M.P.A. is just a small group of people who meet for
coffee every month, I would point out that the vast majority of
residents are members and that the committee, over the years, has
included a large percentage of those residents.
We have built up to
an estate of some 280 homes, the number was much smaller in 1974.
In twenty years, we
have had eight Presidents, thirteen Vice-Presidents, thirteen
Secretaries, eleven Treasurers, six Auditors and more than 100
different people serving on the committee.
I would like to
thank the outgoing committee for their efforts in 1993 and the
nineteen committees that preceded it for developing and protecting
one of the finest lifestyle environments in Brisbane.
Warren Fletcher
President
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