They say that things happen in 3’s, well that’s how my day went when I traveled to Christchurch to join 35 others for the Society’s Christmas lunch in the Garden City.

Just before leaving home for the airport, our President, Karl Sangster, had to cancel his trip down with me. On arriving at Auckland airport for my 9am flight, I found that I had booked the 9pm flight… aaaargh!. Qantas were great and rescheduled my non transferable ticket onto the 9am flight at no cost (or hassle, maybe the CP Society logo on my jersey did the trick?). On arrival at the ‘Chateau on the Park’ in Christchurch, the ‘Camelot’ dining room looked great but to get to it there were two steps…. The promised ramp was nowhere to be found. There was another wheel chair friendly route which was circuitous, and went through ‘staff only’ areas, but what the hell, we’re all use to this sort of thing…… yea right!

From then on it was a great day. I got to meet old friends and make a bunch of new ones. Thanks go to Michael Yeatman and Margaret Mckeown for there assistance in getting many new members along. The event started with a short presentation on the structure of the organization, its strategic plan, progress to date and the projects currently running. The food was excellent and the surrounds were lovely. It was good to see people catching up after having not seen each other for years.