7 November 2007

Family and Community Day - the verdict

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The idea of a public holiday for a horse race in Melbourne is a joke. However I’m not one to look a gift racehorse in the mouth and I enjoyed my free day with my family and community. I forgot to watch the race, but plenty of Canberrans had a flutter with ACTTAB reporting no change in takings on previous years.

So what did everyone get up to? And do you declare the idea of a public holiday on the first Tuesday in November a great day to bond the community together, or a waste of time when we could have been getting work done?

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Ingeegoodbee7:54 pm 08 Nov 07

I’m guessing that if you’ve got a cool room chockers full of chickens, you’re probably regretting ordering the same as last year!

As far as restaurants go, really how many high-brow places are open, and if they are, busy, on a regular Tuesday night? I be a liar if I said last Tuesday was outside of the trading range for anyone who opened for business.

Sure there’ll always be a few butt-maggots squealing about how the world will end and their children will be orphaned but in the end, and without exception, they’re just a minority of annoying little pustules on the shaft of reality … still clinging to the “squeaky wheel” principle in the absence of being able to think of anything better to fat-mouth off about.

chicken shop -owner-.
Nobody else except that one poor deranged individual seemed to want to defend the chickenmen, so it seems to have been an isolated case, unless we see a headline that chicken sales were noticably down citywide for the same day last year.

I lazed around the house till midday, then did some shopping in the afternoon, then went round to a friend’s place for some drinks.

As has been mentioned once or twice; for all the hype about canberra being a ghost town, the Canberra Center was doing a roaring trade and Glebe park was full of people.

I don’t know about the restaurants on Tuesday night, but we went out for dinner on the Monday evening and everywhere seemed pretty busy. Much busier than they would have been if everyone had to work the next day.

All in all, it seems to me that the world didn’t implode and business coped just fine. Individual chicken shop owners may have been ruined for life, but other businesses got a boost, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the economic outcome was neutral at worst.

Make it the Monday instead, then we can still waste half a day with the office stuffing ourselves before watching the horsies for 3 minutes.

I think the holiday went to people’s heads though. I nearly cleaned up two morons driving to work this morning who think the give way laws don’t apply to them. maybe not such a good thing??

audere et gaudere8:52 pm 07 Nov 07

Doomsayers want to pull the pin on the holiday. Do they begrudge other sectors profiting? We rushed retailers; bought shoes/hats/frocks.Kids crafted fascinators. Friends’n’all stampeded races. We’d have partied on but on radio head of restaurants association said, “Nothing’ll be open”. Good luck to restauranters. They deserved family time too. Manuka will recover during “Canberra by the Sea”. It’ll be saturated with Sri Lankans and Indians with 3 International Cricket Matches on 10-12, 30 Jan, and 12 Feb.

Workaholics and obsessive money-makers screw up their lives and kids. Who wants to end up a cardiac cripple anyway?

Carpe Diem! Enjoy the break.

Ingeegoodbee8:36 pm 07 Nov 07

Hey Shiny, how were the trails at Stromlo? We were thinking of a ride yesterday but were worried about stuffing the trails after this rain we’ve been getting.

I rather enjoyed it, slept in. Went to work. Not busy, very few customers. Got paid lots of $$ for just 4 hours of my time. Went for a nice long ride out at Stromlo.

Crowded House Concert – Sydney Entertainment Centre and Wednesday to recover and drive through the pouring rain back to Canberra. Excellent

“But MkII? So there was a MkI Mini Maelinar, and a revision or improvement has been made?”

Shouldn’t that be v1.2?

Congratulations, mate. I hope you’re not giving them NZ citizenship! 🙂

Hooray for Lord Maelinar, whom I have never met and wouldn’t recognise unless introduced.

But MkII? So there was a MkI Mini Maelinar, and a revision or improvement has been made?

Ditto to DarkLadyWolfMother. The ANU was actually fairly busy, though it was all us foreigners. Overall, a f–king retarded holiday. If you’re gonna give off Tuesday, make Monday a holiday, too.

congrats maelinar.
I spent the evening before with family.. and the day itself at extended family’s house. Whether or not they were there, is irelevant.

Ingeegoodbee2:33 pm 07 Nov 07

Congratultions!

Went shopping at Woden Plaza and the Canberra Centre…

Lord Mælinar2:22 pm 07 Nov 07

I am pleased to announce Mini Maelinar Mk II was born on Family and Community Day. In response to the question, I was in the maternity ward at the hospital all day.

DarkLadyWolfMother1:10 pm 07 Nov 07

I ended up at work anyway. The only difference was I was the only one there, so I actually got work done.

Works for me.

I had a marvellous time just relaxing. And why shouldn’t we have this day? We work like bloody trojans all year round just to be told that this has cost the economy a vast amount of money. Well, all you whinging business owners can go kiss a smoking dog’s turd for all I care. You make enough money out of us all the rest of the year (including shoving your prices up at Xmas, Easter etc. etc.), so shut up! Life’s tough, deal with it!
If they do away with it next year, I’ll just go sick anyway. See? No saving!

I would have preferred to be at work. You work till 12, have lunch, sit around eating more food, drinking champagne until the big race hits and then spend the rest of the afternoon drunk, giggling to customers. It’s a great work day. I missed all that this year. Sat on the couch watching the race. Still a nice day with my wife, but would have definately preferred to be at work for half a day and have another day off in August or something like Eftb mentioned.

the racecourse was pulling in a decent income yesterday. pity they were so disorganised and didn’t seem to realise that a public holiday would mean bigger crowds than normal. 45minutes in line for a portaloo is not my idea of fun. neither is waiting 1 hour for a drink. But it was still a fun day out. lots of families having picnics and stuff.
Dickson restaurants were doing a roaring trade in the evening. much better than a normal tueday night, all the punters out celebrating over dinner and more drinks. A pity some businesses decided to believe the hype about a ghost town and not open, there was less choice than usual but everyone packed into the restaurants that were open.
I’m all for public holidays, especially ones that break up the week and make the working week shorter.

Interesting to note – the ACT Chamber of Commerce and Industry were closed on Monday as well as Tuesday. I’m sure their struggling small business members would have been pleased to hear their subscription fees allowed everyone in that office to have two days off!

Ingeegoodbee12:22 pm 07 Nov 07

We had a great day – managed a sleep in and then spent the day at home with the family. Like many small business owners, I end up putting in some weird and long hours and weekends are often spent managing household guff like groceries etc or getting the kids to sporting activities so having a day to just spend together was a real bonus.

I just don’t understand the overblown hysterical wailing and gnashing of teeth from the business lobby – if they were ever wondering about why membership numbers are on the wane, they would only need to look at the blinkered and nonsensical drivel that they’re spokes-people have been putting out.

Completely agree with barney, we work too much and any day off work is most definitely NOT a waste of time.

I spent the afternoon with my parents and the evening at a bbq (bonding with the community 🙂

It sounds like most people spent quality time with atleast one other person which sounds to me way more important than slaving away at work all day. I doubt at the end of my life I’m going to look back and think, “Damn I should have spent more time at work”.

Dark and Mysterious11:06 am 07 Nov 07

I only had 1/2 day off, and due to the cold weather decided to take my family to the National Library for a coffee and cake. What a surprise! Packed out, lots to eat at reasonable prices, but curses, I’d already eaten my packed lunch.
I was heartened to hear that the 10% loading was passed on to the staff as penalty rates, so I had my banana and toffee cake and coffee with a clear conscience.

I have a nice day with a bbq melb cup party with friends. Family day in Glebe park looked packed as we drove past too.

Plenty of other states have public holidays on tuesday (cup day) or a thursday (show day) etc and the earth doesn’t fall in.

It is better for things like school and uni curriculums and childcare to not have every holiday on a monday.

Down the coast!

Mowed the lawn, and then went to the Burns Club for lunch and a few beers. The Burns Club wasn’t as packed as I thought it’d be, either.

I still think it is stupid to have a public holiday on a Tuesday though.

For the love of god, won’t somebody think of the chickenmen?

Had a great day spent with family & friends. No complaints here.

Joe Canberran9:58 am 07 Nov 07

Can’t disagree with that.

Was a bloody ghost town last night, tried to take my girly out for dinner and the first 4 restaurants I called were shut. The one I ended up going to only had 4 other patrons all night.

I am never one to complain about a day off work, any public holiday even if it is on a tuesday and has a stupid reason – lets be honest and call it a melbourne cup holiday if thats what it is for!

if I hadn’t have already been taking this friday off I would have taken monday and made it a long weekend to go to the coast (as I’m sure half of canberra did).

It certainly was not a community day for me – hubby and I spent the day out in the bloody wind putting up a new fence on our property! – but again I won’t complain about having a free day off!

You have a good point EtFb – give us a public holiday in August, it would be much more appreciated then I think – then we can all go back to haveing melbouurne cup at work, doing the sweeps and lunch and champers, or chucking a sicky and going out to the racecourse 🙂

Does life only consist of getting up and going to work ? The problem with society these days is that WE WORK TOO MUCH !

I always like a holiday, and I took the Monday off too, but it’s still bloody stupid. The financial hit the local caterers took is enough reason not to do it again. Give us a holiday some time between June (Queen’s Birthday) and October (Labour Day) during the long holiday drought!

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