THE HILLS REPORT FOR THE NEWSLETTER 2017 BEP KLEIBERG AND MICHELE MIDDENDORP co‐LOS
Our first meeting ( always in January ) was to plan the year ’ s program , which was then followed by a brief game of celebrity heads before supper .
February saw 19 of our 21 members gather for an evening of commenting on a wide variety of newspaper headings and articles . At times the conversation became quite animated and required the chairwoman to intervene with her bell . Surprisingly ‘ Trump ’ was mentioned only once and almost just in passing ( thank goodness , as it would be easy to spend an entire evening on that subject !).
Have you noticed how quiet it is on public transport these days ? On buses & trains you ’ ll see most commuters are on either their phones , computers or tablets or dozing off . No verbal conversations — no friendly ‘ in person ’ connections , however fleeting . In March we had interesting discussions about body language , communication and the effects of social media . We all agreed that texting and using social media have their uses , but take up too much of our children ’ s time and that the art of oral communication is getting lost in the process . An example was brought up of two people having dinner at a restaurant while both were texting on their phones . Maybe to each other ? We learned that various body poses mean different things , but that there is always a combination of at least 3 of these poses necessary to determine what is actually being said through body language . All in all a very informative night which was expertly led by Thomasina .
April ’ s Trivia night , thoughtfully put together by Sue , saw great rivalry between the 2 teams of 5 . Questions such as name 3 states in the USA with either an x or a z in them , and , where is the world ’ s most ancient forest , had us scratching our heads . The final result was just a half mark separating the teams . ( ANSWERS : Texas , Arizona , New Mexico ; The Daintree ).
For our May meeting we were lucky enough to have a lady called Thelma Scanes . She is part of the soft furnishing group of Old Government House in Parramatta , set up in 2004 . The group is responsible for making curtains , bedding and other soft furnishings as near to the original as possible , as the various Governors took those with them when they moved out , because materials were scarce in those days . The volunteers worked on designs sourced by Elizabeth Wright from old sketches & descriptions , and later , photographs . Tassels and fringes would have cost lots of money if the group had had to buy them overseas so they were hand made . Only natural materials were used ; wool , cotton , linen and silk‐all hand stitched . The volunteers had to learn painting on velvet , spinning cords and binding tassels . Thelma showed us many examples and we had a real insight into what was involved in replicating the beautiful soft furnishings of the era .
The June meeting saw 15 of us sharing our research on topics beginning with individually and randomly selected alphabet letters . We covered many diverse topics . Imagine using soap , chalk , crushed oyster shells or ground charcoal as Toothpaste ( T ). In 1890 Colgate introduced toothpaste in tubes . Paper ( P ) was invented during the Han Dynasty in 105 AD . The Chinese also invented envelopes and toilet paper . Zip‐a‐dee‐doo‐dah ( Z ) is a song everyone is familiar with , but where did it originate ? It is from the 1946 Disney film ‘ Song of the South ’ featuring 2 white children
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