Dear Members and Friends,
As I write, I am watching Australia’s outstanding performance at the Paris Olympics, always a showcase of spectacular personal sporting achievement - and a playground for statisticians. Australia is brilliantly fourth in the medal table with 14 Gold medals behind the US and China, both on 22. But looking at this another way, Australia’s productivity - gold medals per head of population – puts us miles ahead of both the US and China. It takes only 2m Aussies to win a gold medal whereas it takes 67m Chinese or 18m Americans to win one. China needs to win 760 gold medals to equal Australia’s performance, so far.
Before you all jump onto your calculators, let me volunteer that the Irish and the New Zealanders are tied for the lead, each only needing 1.5m people to win a gold medal.
Moving on, a couple of weeks ago Jacqui and I managed a three-hour drive and the usual roadworks to get to Donington, a small village in Lincolnshire, for the reinternment of Matthew Flinders. Readers will recall that Flinders’ body was found during the excavation of Euston station for HS2 and a campaign was launched by residents of Donington, where he was born in 1774, to “bring him home”. I am happy to report that it was a wonderful celebration and a brilliant event recognising Flinders’ incredible achievements. We were honoured to be there. The beautiful church was packed (as was the marquee outside), the choir was exceptional and the service uplifting (except for Flinders of course who was ceremoniously lowered into his permanent grave in the floor of the church). There were many who travelled from Australia, particularly South Australia, including Governor Frances Adamson AC. South Australia Agent General David Ridgway and his predecessor Bill Muirhead AM were of course there together with Deputy High Commissioner Elisabeth Bowes PSM representing the High Commissioner. It was an unexpectedly fun weekend! If you don’t know much about Flinders, check him out on Wikipedia.
A special thank you to Jane Pearson, Chair of the campaign that brought Flinders back to Donington. Jane, and her committee, worked tirelessly over many years to bring him back and to make the wonderful event in Donington such as success.
A reminder that we have our President’s Reception with Lord Hague on 17 September. Booking details have been sent already and the event is now pretty much sold out. If you would like to come along, you can buy any remaining tickets here.
Other events coming up include the next of our “First Eight” lecture series, looking at the life and times of Australia’s 6th Prime Minister, Joseph Cook, at Australia House on 9 October and our hugely well attended Christmas Carols (and Christmas drinks) at St Mary-le-Bow at 4:30pm on 5 December. As tradition has it, the Christmas Carols are free to attend. Save the dates for both and further details will follow.
The House of Oz at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is now in full swing, brilliantly showcasing Australian creative arts at this iconic destination. The founding Patron and Creative Director behind The House of Oz is Australian philanthropist Georgie Black without whose support many of these wonderful artists would not have a platform for their talent. Georgie deserves a huge thanks for her hard work and generosity in making the House of Oz such a success. See here for all the details of what’s on and where.
If you love and appreciate Australian Indigenous art as I do, summer is a fabulous time to visit some of the outstanding exhibitions of around the country. You can see the wonderful Yoi exhibition of works from the Munupi Arts & Crafts Association currently on show at the Saatchi Gallery in London and/or drop into Jasmine Coe’s Summer Exhibition of Indigenous art at the Coe Gallery in Bristol (the current exhibition finishes soon) and/or the “Revelation & Concealment” exhibition of Indigenous art at the JGM Gallery in Battersea, London.
Enjoy the rest of the summer and I’ll look forward to seeing many of you at Australia House on 17 September.
Best wishes
Damian Walsh
Chair
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