On the 13th May 1976 Bill Gibbs, then Director of Meteorology, sent a letter to people who had had long years of service in or association with the Bureau, referring to a meeting which he was calling to discuss a proposal for the formation of a club for long-serving officers, including those still serving and others who had retired or had been transferred to other jobs within the service or outside.

The letter suggested that such people might be interested in the formation of a club for maintaining an informal contact between the retired or separated Bureau people and the still serving members, through monthly lunches.

Attached to Bill's letter were a memo serving notice to the existing Bureau staff and an outline of the proposal which I had prepared, at Bill's suggestion, a few weeks earlier. A meeting was to be held on the 20th May 1976 at the conference room at 150 Lonsdale Street.

As I was rather obsessed with the idea of twenty years (following the DCA 'Twenties Club' which included people who had been in the service for twenty years or so), I suggested that the club which we hoped to form could be call 'The Olympians Club' as this year marked the 20th anniversary of the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. The outline proposal dealt with such things as eligibility for membership, the purpose and functions of the club, the way it should be financed and a draft constitution which could be drawn up at this informal meeting if there were any takers for the idea of such a club.

Bill's letter and my draft proposal are in Attachment A.

Bureau of Meteorology