News
BAMOS
Jun 2020
7
1978 Meteorologist Course—Virtual Reunion
Milton Speer
The 1978 Meteorologists’ course at the Bureau of Meteorology
Training School (then located at 150 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne)
was unusually large as it consisted of 24 Australians and
another seven international participants from nearby southeast
Asian countries. Late last year, a few of us thought it would be
a good idea to organise a reunion (including partners) since
there were so many us. So email addresses and phone numbers
were sourced and a WhatsApp group was created. After settling
on the weekend of 28–29 March this year as the date, the
final number was about 12 including partners. Canberra was
chosen as the most neutral or geographically centric venue and
the plan was to start with drinks on the Friday evening at the
Kurrajong Hotel followed by a short walk around the corner to
the Ottoman restaurant. Unfortunately, COVID19 restrictions
on hotels and restaurants increased through March to the point
where the reunion had to be cancelled.
Not to be deterred, five of us: Julie Dowsley, Neale Fraser, Robin
Hicks, Chris Ryan, and myself held a Zoom meeting on Friday
evening 27 March and socialised for over two hours. It is hoped
we can reschedule a physical reunion in future.
The accompanying photograph of participants in the 1978 Met.
Course was supplied by Chris Ryan. The complete names of four
out of seven of the international participants are thanks mainly
to the long term memory of Neale Fraser.
Note: Unfortunately the full names of several classmates
were unable to be confirmed and hence they are shown as
"classmate"in the list below.
Top row: John Mottram (Head of Training School), Andrew Watson,
Julie Evans, Robin Hicks, Arthur Downey, Ian Bell (Lecturer),
Bruce Buckley, Manfred Greitschus, Roger Atkins, Tom Keenan,
Keith Caldwell, Neale Fraser, Milton Speer, Tan Boon Eng, Dave
Lawson, Ian Murphy (Lecturer), Max Adams;
Middle row: Mal Glover (Lecturer), Anne Ring (Lecturer),
Classmate, Tan Chen Kok, Martin Crowe, Graeme Ball, Mike
Olden, Lyndon Grimmer, Ann Brewster (Lecturer), Greg Holland
(Lecturer), Classmate,
Bottom row: Michael Halfpenny, Lloyd Connelly, Amorn (surname
unconfirmed), Chris Ryan, Peter Gigliotti, Russell Jaycock, Tan Lee
Seng, Jeff Kingwell, Ahmed Sujack Bin Bon, Ken Wilson.
Source: Chris Ryan
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