OTVA NEWSLETTER - October 2009 - Volume 11 - Page 9
CONTENTS President’s Message 9 COMING EVENTSCHRISTMAS LUNCH & REUNIONThis event will be held at the York 2 Room, on Level 2 of the Bowlers’ Club, 99 York Street, Sydney from 11.30am on Friday November 13, 2009. There will be a short presentation prior to lunch. RSVP via email to the President or by phone to David Richardson on 02 9980 8353. Interstate Vets are more than welcome. Other suggestions for places which might interest Vets are sought. Make your suggestion now to any Committee member! WIN-WIN-WIN!Win a $50 gift voucher for having your story published in the OTVA Newsletter. See the Last Word column on page 18 for details.EXOTCHave you visited the EXOTC web site set up by Robert Brand? This web site is dedicated to past employees of the Overseas Telecommunications Commisssion (Australia) and has a great selection of stories and photos and is well worth a visit. FROM OUR PRESIDENT [Top]
The 2009 AGM has come and gone with the OTVA Committee re-elected to their positions with one variation and that being Henry Cranfield elected as Vice President. Congratulations to Henry and I personally thank him for the many years of devoted service that he has provided and continues to provide to the membership of the OTVA. The Spring Reunions are almost upon us with the first, organised by Peter Grove was held at the Greek Club on Friday 11 September. A great night was had by all. The OTVA Committee is organising its Christmas Reunion for Friday November 13 2009. The event will follow the same format as last year with a sit down meal preceded by a presentation by Dean Ververka (ex-Broadway ISTC and CNCC) but the message should be of interest to all of us. Chris Bull continues to improve the quality and content of the OTVA web site adding a BLOG to stimulate communication on topics of interest (http://www.otva.com/blog). Chris is keen to identify features that members may want to improve the quality of the service that it provides. Please check out the web site and let me know what your think (email to: president@otva.com). All ideas for additional content will be warmly welcomed. Congratulations to Robert Brand (ex Broadway and Paddington ITMC’s) who coordinated celebrations of the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing in June and July of 2009. Robert did an excellent job in stimulating support and interest in this event that has significant historical significance for communications in Australia. To read all about the successes of the event check out the web site http://www.echoesofapollo.com and offer your comments or congratulations to Robert via Robert.Brand@echoesofapollo.com. The OTVA Executive continues to work to attract younger constituents within the Australian telecommunications environment.
The success of the downloadable version of the OTVA Newsletter will continue to be the source of much debate and consideration as the Committee works towards and cheaper and more efficient means of distributing the Newsletter. The objective of the committee is to produce an environment friendly newsletter distribution without incurring high download costs. Victorian AGM June 2009 [Top]from Robert Hall in Melbourne
The 2009 AGM was chaired by President Mr Mervyn Jessop on 4th June 2009 at Legacy Melbourne.
In attendance we had 21 Vets: Wilhelm Becker, John Caulfield, Dorothy Birch, June (Cooney) Ferguson, Jack White, John Davey, Noel Dennis, Vance Findlay, Les Foley, Mary Tancheff, Betty Prentice, Judith & Robert Hall, Ed Willingham, Mervyn Jessop, Gary Kelly, Gerard Mccarthy, Graeme McKenzie, Norman Biggs, Dimi & Helen Krisa. Apologies were received from 23 Vets: Robert Beck, Hector Blemings, Ian Smyth, Ray Donald, Charlie Micallef, Nancy Ferguson, Robert Geake, Alan Amos, Robert McConchie, Murial Lovett, John Coxhead, Angelo Scambiatterra, Gennie Schwarze, Joan Ferne, Geoffrey Whitmore, Denis Chambers, Bruce Henderson, Gweneth Hill, Artie Koopman, Warren Marshall, Joan Miller, Michael Murray and Kevin Shea. Mr. Gary Kelly was elected President. Mr. Graeme McKenzie, Vice President and the Secretary and Treasurer Mr. Robert Hall were elected unopposed.
Dorothy Birch, Helen Krisa, Mary Tancheff, Betty Pointer, Judith Hall, June (Cooney) Ferguson at the Victorian Vets AGM
Jack, John, Robert, Gerard and Dimi at the Victorian AGM. Telephone Pornography and Internet Filtering [Top]by Bob Emanuel You have probably heard that the Commonwealth Government is to require Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) to filter designated undesirable sites from access by the public, without informing the public as to which sites are blocked. Having seen the list, thanks to a botched blocking attempt by the Government, the names of some of those sites made my stomach churn. There are some very sick people out there. Nonetheless, filtering will not work. Here are two previous examples where the government of the day tried to block telephone pornography – and failed. In the early nineties I was working for John Vossen as the SCANTS and Switch Support Manager. At the time there was a Senate Enquiry into Pornography in Australia, brought on by the then ALP Government to appease Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine. It was a late Friday afternoon in the office at Paddington when Anna came in and told me that Phil Green had called and wanted a manager to call him back. As the only remaining manager in the office I did so and was told that he had just received a “Ministerial” (request from the Minister for Communications). He told me that I had to have blocked a particular Russian IDD number as it had been brought to the attention of the Senate Enquiry by the EROS Foundation, representing the print and video porn producers, who were complaining that in the Senate Enquiry telephone porn wasn’t being as picked on as badly as they were! I told Phil that we could easily block it, of course, but that the same number would appear in the newspaper classifieds on Monday morning with the last digit changed. He agreed, but a Ministerial is a Ministerial, and so after much discussion with Danny Yee in the top floor INMC, that number was blocked in the AXE’s and DMS 300’s. Danny had, quite rightly, queried why a verbal order was given and not a written order and it took a lot of talking on my part to get him to block the number. Sure enough, the number reappeared n the classifieds on the following Monday with the last digit changed, but justice had been seen to be done! Australia had, for two days, been saved from the ravages of one (of many) telephone pornography numbers. We never had a follow-up call from the Minister on the changed number. Fast forward to 2001. The telecommunications landscape had changed considerably from that of the early nineties. There were 9 or more actual carriers and many resellers of IDD traffic. A self-regulating body, the Australian Communications Industry Forum (ACIF) had been created and had written many standards and resolved many technical issues between carriers, such as signalling systems and Local Number Portability. The telephone porn business had changed, too. It was much larger and more sophisticated. Carriers did not necessarily have to use 1900 numbers as normal local geographic numbers would do, both domestic and international. New Area Codes appeared in exotic locations such as Africa, Russia and the island of Diego Garcia for regions that did not exist. Some carriers made it known that they could terminate calls to those new Area Codes. Rates were determined, well above the normal call terminating rates into those countries. The funny thing was that, in 2001, by calling a telephone sex number in Russia, you would get a very Australian voice on the other end of the line! See Short Stopping, below.
During the 2001 election campaign, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts was asked a question by a morning talkback announcer about telephone sex lines and he very quickly promised to block them to save all the kiddies of Australia from this vile and evil exploitation. Those same kiddies would have already discovered internet porn for free rather than paying for telephone porn, but common sense is usually in short supply during an election campaign. The directive from the Minister’s office was that all carriers had to block the numbers provided by the department, that they had to keep an eye out for new porn numbers and the carriers had to keep on blocking numbers as new porn numbers became known, otherwise fines and possible licence sanctions would be implemented. 30 seconds worth of thinking by the Minister’s office would have come up with the conclusion that stopping the advertising of those numbers would have been the only sensible way to stop calls to those numbers. I made it very clear to the ACIF group that what had happened before would happen again - numbers would change by one digit and be re-advertised in the newspapers and various magazines. As an ACIF working group, we resolved that it was the Government promoting uncompetitive behaviour as it added to our costs, and that it was unworkable because of the massive number of number changes that the pornographers would perform. This was communicated back to the Department who quickly – and deftly – flick passed it back to the Minister’s office. A conference call was set up between our working group and the Minister’s office. One of his staff laid down the law and demanded to know how quickly we would have this in place. As spokesman for the group I told him that what they had mandated was unworkable and that as it added costs to each Telco it was uncompetitive behaviour by the government and that we could not possibly do it. Well, didn’t he go off his block! He informed the group in no uncertain terms that this was a Ministerial Directive and that we had to comply. Fortunately the mute button had been activated so he could not hear our response to his tirade. We calmed down, opened the mute button and I told the Minister’s office that the only way this could be controlled would be by banning the advertising of these numbers. That sent this staffer off again on another tirade – HIT THE MUTE, BOB – again, with much merriment on our part. We then suggested that the Minister’s office was more interested in protecting the classified advertising revenues of the newspaper and magazine proprietors than looking after the interests of the kiddies of Australia. This sent the Minister’s staffer into a paroxysm of rage. The line from Canberra ran hot as it became apparent to the Minister’s staffer that we were not going to do their bidding, and that by implication, the days of the Ministerial Directive were over. To get around this, the Minister could have made it a licence condition that Telcos undertake such blocking, but that would have gone too far for the Telcos and would have led to Court action with a likely win for the Telcos. For the rest of the election campaign, we held a weekly conference call with him on this topic. He must have dreaded this - he knew that we knew he could not force us to do his bidding, and we knew that he knew that we knew. The calls were discontinued after the election. Apparently it was no longer the hot topic that it was a month before. This is what will happen with the sites filtered by Government mandate. The pornographers and the like will change their URL (Universal Resource Location address) just as the telephone pornographers changed their phone numbers. Instead of forwarding from the old URL, denizens of those sick sites will be informed by email of the new URL and this will go on ad infinitum. I’d rather that these sites be seen and hits on them monitored and appropriate action taken against offenders. It would appear that Stephen Conroy has resurrected a type of Ministerial with his “request” to separate the Wholesale and Retail arms of Telstra. That this should have happened in the 1990’s is now very apparent. Short Stopping [Top]by Chris Bull and Bob Emanuel So how, when you dialled a Russian IDD number, did you end up with an Australian voice at the other end of the telephone sex line? Short Stopping meant that the call never left Australia – the call was stopped short of its apparent destination. The Country code was legitimate, but the Area Code was not – it was an artificial number that only one or two Telcos could terminate and the call was terminated in Australia, not Russia, sometimes in a call centre, sometimes on home phones. This was a new phenomenon made possible by the introduction of Telco competition. The former clubby relationships that existed between the incumbent carriers – of which OTC was one – gave way to the overriding drive for revenue and margin amongst many competing carriers. Short stopping did not usually involve any Telco in the destination country, but not always. In one instance, a Telco short stopped calls in Australia to another country on the part of a porn provider utilising an artificial Area Code, with both the porn provider and the in-country Telco whose country code was being used getting a cut of the revenue. When the porn provider and the country involved realised they were being short changed by the Telco, the issue ended up in court. That Telco no longer provides that service. On more than one occasion, Sales staff would come up to Bob E, in his role as approver of special bids, with requests for a million minutes a month out of Brisbane (or other capital city) to, say Diego Garcia, a coral atoll in the southern Indian Ocean, mainly used as a US Military base. Former Broadway ITMC staffer Greg Jones was stationed at the Cable and Wireless satellite station on Diego Garcia at the time, so on the first occasion this bid came up Bob E rang Gregg who laughed and told him that there wasn’t the population on DG to handle a million minutes a month, let alone a million minutes a month out of Brisbane! Further enquiries showed that the traffic was to a non-existent area code, and that only one Telco (now defunct) could terminate the traffic, but at triple the normal terminating rate to DG. The Salesman had quoted the standard terminating rate in his bid to the customer, so we would have been out of pocket had we accepted that traffic. The traffic would have been short stopped in Sydney. The Strongest VK Ever Heard in England [Top]by Brian Woods VK2AZI I am not sure why I became so adventurous around 4 in the morning on the 6th of April 1965, however like lots of other OTC people one tended to conduct the odd “experiment” every so often and to note the outcomes especially those with unexpected consequences. This “experiment” was to fire up a 10 kilowatt (kW) transmitter into a Rhombic antenna aimed at London on the 20 metre amateur radio band and see what happened. I used a Doonside CLH30J transmitter, connected to the Rhombic Antenna directed to London. The antenna gain was approximately 26db. A Rohde and Schwarz synthesiser was used as the Variable Frequency Oscillator (VFO), and for the receiver I used Collins communications receiver - it was the general purpose Station Receiver connected to another London Rhombic. As I recall, the 30J was rated at 30Kw Peak Envelope Power (for voice transmission), and 10Kw CW (Continuous Wave transmission used for Morse code), key down. This was not to be sniffed at when compared with the 100 watt maximum limit then allowed to Amateur Radio stations. Coupled with the massive gain of the Rhombic, the transmission was given a most significant boost!! Very hazy on my db’s these days but think this would have amounted to an Effective Radiated Power of around 5,000,000 watts, or is it more like 3,200,000 watts? Anyhow I cranked up the required equipment, and was surprised to find local noise on 14Mhz from other transmitters running at the time was not a problem. The Rhombic connected to the Collins receiver would have helped in that regard. I heard dozens of overseas amateur stations working, but found a clear spot around 14,042 kHz and called CQ with Don, G5MD, located at Bromyard, Herefordshire in England coming back to me. Whilst we were talking in morse, it was obvious that Don was flabbergasted, with comments like “this is unbelievable.” “The strongest signal ever heard from a VK station.” “Was I a ‘Pirate’ operating from Europe?” And so on. I have found his QSL card with his further comments transcribed later in this document. At the conclusion of our QSO, (see below – Ed), a UQ (Kazakhstan) amateur called. I replied, but things had started to really hot up. Stations from everywhere were calling VK2AZI. It was as though someone had disturbed a hornet’s nest. It had really turned into an unbelievable situation. What a bun fight! What a dog’s breakfast! What to do? It was a bit of a hike from the transmitter morse key to the Collins receiver - this was an Ops Branch lash-up, not the standard Eng Branch installation, so to make quick replies was a bit awkward. I needed the running shoes to continue. This, along with difficulty trying to read a particular station with another calling over the top and not to mention that rising feeling of “for goodness sake, what have I done” brought about a quick decision - Quit While Still In Front! One needs to be aware that lots of stations calling would not hear lots of other calling stations, which is quite normal. Usually one is sitting with the receiver in front and the morse key beside making it easier to come back to interfering stations and ask that they QRT and wait their turn. However, this presented as an out of control situation such that even with more convenient facilities, doubt if it could have been sorted. Below is taken from Don’s QSL card (for Q-code decode see end of Brian’s article - Ed): “Dear OM, To my regret, I did not acknowledge his card so guess he concluded he had been working a pirate. At the time, I just wanted to put it behind me and more or less did, until mentioned by the editor that it could make for a good article in the Vets’ Newsletter. I don’t know what penalties may have applied. The loss of my Ham licence for a start I suppose. Also, I didn’t want do be found doing anything that might stir up OTC management as Leo Mahoney and myself had landed in a bit of strife a few years earlier (and that story, Brian, will most definitely not be published – Ed). As for G5MD’s QSL card, I probably hadn’t seen it since1965, however it was filed away with lots of others. I have been a Ham since 1948, as VK4ZI, VK6ZI, and VK2AZI. I looked up callsigns on international list and see G5MD still going up to 1999, but unable find anything later. I tried the UK phone book, but no luck. His name and address was Don Powell, 8 Lower Westfields, Bromyard Herefordshire HR7 4EN. I would have dropped him a few lines if thought he still around. I was 37 at the time, but did not know his age. Another amateur and experimenter in OTC was Don Shaw who sadly passed away at a relatively early age some years ago. Don was attached to the now defunct Rockbank (Victoria) receiving station for many years. His speciality was low power communications from Rockbank - 2.5 watts into a Rhombic and no doubt other types of high gain directive aerials they had there. He had some marvellous results. I worked him on several occasions while I was stationed at Thursday Island Radio. The reason for the 2.5w was because the terminating resistors in the receiving antennas were rated at 5w only and naturally he didn’t want to over work the riggers replacing termination. He wasn’t breaking any amateur rules and guess local management at Rockbank were prepared to look the other way, so he had no problems as far as I know. I don’t know how familiar people are with the Q code these days, but a basic de-code is given below. The Q Code QTH - My location is. I wonder how many other OTC staff at the various radio stations fired up an OTC transmitter and antenna on a ham band and caused havoc – please drop me a line – Ed. The website www.exotc.com has various stories about other groups “experiments.” Echoes of Apollo (EOA) [Top]by Robert BrandThe Echoes of Apollo project began when Pat Barthelow from the US contacted the OTVA to help achieve a historic EME contact between the Jamesburg Earth Station in California USA and the Parkes Dish in NSW Australia – both had taken part in the global Apollo 11 TV coverage. That contact was in Dec 2008 and after due consideration, the OTVA felt that this was beyond their resources and legal capabilities as an association. What is EME? – Also known as Moon Bounce, EME stands for Earth-Moon-Earth transmissions. An activity that is practiced regularly within the amateur radio community by an elite group that often built their own equipment. One active amateur in Victoria has even build a steerable 10m dish on the hill on is farm! As a member of the OTVA, I became involved due to my connections with Parkes. In Jan 2009, Pat and I formed the Echoes of Apollo group. It was decided that any EME event that was worthwhile should include the rest of the world. World Moon Bounce Day was created. The Echoes of Apollo project operates in a “not for Profit” mode and thus includes many opportunities for amateur activities. The entire project is all about the past, present and future of space flight and covers a wide range of activities and space outreach. The main event that kicked off the global celebrations for Apollo 11’s 40th anniversary was World Moon Bounce Day. The dates and plans for the Moon Bounce event were circulated around the world and we received support from the University of Tasmania and their 26m dish and the SRI dish at Stanford University as well as many interested amateur enthusiasts. World Moon bounce was proposed to be like the Jamboree of the Air and included children and students. We unfortunately could not get the Jamesburg dish due to legal issues and the CSIRO also were unable to take part, but the event was an amazing success. Dishes from around the world tracked the moon and communicated with each other using voice and transmit powers of about 100w SSB and moderate sized antennas. The truly incredible part was the world record set by the University of Tasmania transmitting to a 30m dish in the Netherlands via the moon. They sent low speed data transmissions that they bounced off the moon’s surface and was successfully decoded back to viable data. With such large dishes, the power was of course low, but just how low? If I said as low as a bright incandescent torch globe, you would be probably amazed. In fact it was 1/1,000th of that! 3 Milliwatts (mW) – that’s 3 thousandths of a watt - to be precise. They had already done the maths on this and believed that it was possible. Being a dish used for Radio Astronomy, they could not have a generator of greater than 10mW near the dish anyway. The big dish at Stanford University also took part in a historic hook-up with Apollo 8 astronaut and standby crewmember for Apollo 11, Bill Anders. He was interviewed about his moon experiences for all to hear. Bill was credited with that famous earth rise photo that had the world marvelling at the amazing spectacle of our planet rising over the stark lunar surface. All of the Apollo astronauts are now in their 80s and Bill had trouble hearing the questions, but after a bit of local help he responded with captivating stories of what happened on his mission. The second World Moon Bounce Day is scheduled to occur around early April 2010. It will have greater support given the success of the first event. Radio and TV coverage occurred in Australia and Switzerland. Other activities included numerous radio interviews, radio stories, web, magazine and newspaper stories. Each began by discussing the old days of OTC and their activities in support of the Apollo 11 landing. The OTVA support for the efforts of the Echoes of Apollo project has been a strong motivator for the high workloads for this 4 year event. Their support has been truly appreciated and I cannot state how essential their involvement has been. OTVA is a sponsor of the Echoes of Apollo Project VALE [Top]Bruce Olivier's Wife Alison - 12th September 2009Tribute from Ken Arnold. Alison was born in Ashfield, Sydney in 1952. Bruce Olivier was working for OTC at Head Office when he meet Alison Morling and it wasn’t long before Bruce decided he had meet the girl of his dreams. The problem was that Bruce’s career had taken him to the OTC Satellite Earth Station at Ceduna but this didn’t stop him marrying Alison in March 1979 at the Carlingford Baptist Church in Sydney. They started their married life at Ceduna and it must have been good because Nicole, their eldest, was born during this time. The new Olivier family returned to Sydney in 1982 so that Bruce could take up a position at the OTC Doonside Radio Station. While working at Doonside Alison, Bruce and Nicole lived in one of the OTC houses at Bringelly until they brought their own place at Blaxland in 1983. In 1984 Bruce was transferred to the Paddington ITMC and while working there Alison and Bruce expanded their family with the birth of Rachel in 1986, followed by David in 1987. In 1991 Alison, Bruce and family were on the move again this time to the OTC ANZCAN Cable station on Norfolk Island. In 1993 they returned to Sydney and moved back to their Blaxland home where the family lives today. After returning Alison worked as a Teacher at Tregear Pre-School before moving to aged-care at Blaxland Anglicare. Alison was a great Mum and together with Bruce raised 3 beautiful children. She was a committed Christian and through her Church initiated a program called ‘Helping Hands’ to not only help Church members but also the wider community. Bruce left OTC in 1993 to join Optus where he still works today. The overwhelming message that came across at the funeral was that Alison was a person who was a master at doing small things that had a great impact on people’s lives. There is a commercial on TV that says “from little things big things grow” - that was Alison. Alison will be dearly missed by all those who knew her. Joan Willis (Nee Little) - 20th July 2009
It is with sadness that we advise that Joan passed away peacefully on Monday 20th July 2009 in the hospital. Philip was there to see her on her way supported by friends. We would like to thank everyone for their kind words. She really appreciated all the emails she received. Please send messages to the family c/- jnwillis@iinet.net.au. I first met Joan when we moved from Spring Street up to the new Head Office in Martin Place where Joan worked in a secretarial capacity for various senior managers. I came to know her when I moved out from the Operating area (the infamous SOR as a Telegraphist & later from the International Telex exchange at Paddington) into the Commercial Branch headed in those days by George Maltby. Joan was a very hard working, conscientious secretary who found herself in a predicament years ago when staff in the SOR were went out on strike (called by the PREI of which I'd once been a Member - a not very happy one I might add!). She knew of my background & sought my help. Since I had few sympathies with the PREI (as a result of earlier differences), Strike Breaker Simmo sprung into action. I cleared substantial important company Telex traffic for her on that & more than a few other like occasions. Perhaps that story can now be told since methinks the PREI is long since gone. Joan & I became good friends & we often chuckled over those past days when we worked behind the scenes & made things happen. Tribute from Chris Vonwiller Joan worked with me as my secretary both in International Division and also when I moved to OTC Enhanced. Before Joan worked for me, she was John Hampton’s secretary before he moved to Intelsat, so she was well trained by my predecessor. Joan was a fantastic support to everyone in the office and great company. She was a person “of the old school” who was willing to do any task and help any colleague, and she knew the international organisations and players very well. Over the years I think she received quite a few SOS’s from OTC people overseas at meetings who needed to bailed out of trouble by Head Office. It was wonderful that Joan had such a happy retirement with Philip with some terrific adventure tourism in various parts of the globe. David McCredie - 17th April 2009 Tribute from Peter Bull David McCredie joined OTC in the early 80s as a Quality of Service Operator working in the International Network Management Centre (INMC) located on Level 7 of the International terminal located at 363 Oxford Street Paddington NSW. Together with his fellow INMC QoS operators (Patricia Anderson, Paul Mulcahy, Eddie Tammes and Mike Elkin) David monitored international voice telephony calls to detect and/or investigate line quality issues with relation to overseas countries with which OTC had direct circuits or lines. David was a well-liked member of the team who was always effervescent and enthusiastic about his job, his friends & colleagues and life in general. David would sign the daily log book, his letters & other correspondence with the Star of David. There were many times where David would enlighten us with stories that caused us to think in wonder and other times to gasp in fear. He certainly had some good ones. I will never forget the night that he and the other QoS operators took me to the Albury Hotel in Darlinghurst at the conclusion of a training course. I am certain that he just wanted to see my embarrassment at being confronted by the gay community in which he socialised at the time. The phrase "white as a sheet" comes to mind. Coincidentally I recall the story about his mate who was a dentist in Sydney who had agreed to crown some of his teeth at minimal charge only to find some 12 months later that he had botched the job requiring David to have the teeth surgically removed as they had caused a problem for the bone in his jaw to which they had been attached. David was another "character" who made OTC the family that I will always remember fondly and lament its passing. Jeffree Spray - March 2009Jeffree, who was the son of Reg and Gillian Spray, was hit by a bus in the UK and consequently died. Jeffree was in his early thirties, much too young. Our sincere condolences go to Reg, Gillian and family. LAST WORD [Top]OTVA SUBSCRIPTIONS NOW DUE.You can pay by direct bank transfer. Contact Bernie White for our account details. Bernie’s contact details are:- PH: 02 9708 4666 Email: treasurer@otva.comWIN WIN WINWin a $50 gift voucher for having your story published in the OTVA Newsletter. We need your stories for publication in the Newsletter. You don’t have to be a Nobel Laureate for Literature to tell your tale. If you send me the details of what you’d like to write I can edit the story for you, send back and get you to OK for publication. You might just be happy to let me edit and publish – Brian Woods’ “The Strongest VK” story in this month’s Newsletter is one such an example. Despite my editing or assistance, you would be eligible for the full $50 because it is your story! Don’t delay! The Management Committee would vote as to whether a published story is the winner each quarter. ********** The official history of OTC is well known. David Richardson and Bernie White at the October Committee meeting were both strong on recording as much of the human and social stories of OTC as we can. ********** ********** ********** Cheers, Bob E |
Fellow Members of the OTVA, 
Victorian Vets’ new President
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