Running Links
T u r r a m u r r a
The Trotters is a traditional institution, open to anyone of a good home and family (and Mike Karrs too and others who live south of Roseville) ... even so, there are many long participating members, who hold its ideals and achievements very dearly ... and over the years, there have been donations of various amounts of money, contributions of champagne, broken pencils, time, tubes of horse linement, cakes, emergency sheets of absorbent paper, rupees, plastic cups, dubious magazines, undergarments and many other things, given altruistically by the lads and trottettes ... and these have been much appreciated.
When some of the banking requirements changed in 2001, there was a call for the establiahment of a corpus fund to avoid the imposition of fees. Any cash contributed would be in the nature of a Sunk Bond, being a "redeemable gift" or "loan" to the Turramurra Trotters. An unkind observer has been heard to mutter behind a sweat band, "More like a bloody Junk Bond that a Sunk Bond". This is very unfair to the designers of these financial instruments.
The following long-standing patrons and benefactors put their hands in their pockets to ensure that the TTs could continue on financially ...... all those listed are .. ahem, very patronising, of good repute (well ... most of them - including Colin Sutton) and of very long service as Trotters.
They came to assist this venerable institution and gave unselfishly in its hour of need. We shall remember them. Trotters have affectionately called this Initial Patrons Offer to Subscribe to the TT Sunk Bonds ... in honour of Les Bryce, "T1".
In 2006, St George Bank raised this threshold to $3000, and although there were a number of suggestions as to how to operate a different kind of bank account with perhaps a different financial institution, it was felt that as we have had this account for well over 25 years we didn’t want to fall into the administrative nightmare of having 100 point checks, constitutions and minutes of meetings and a more formal corporatised or formal association.
It is rumoured that David Hepworth FPA MBA TT, who is normally not a bad chap, has argued that the Sunk Bonds are in nature a "loan in perpetuity" and therefore are not loans at all, being in fact akin to equity, and the Trotters should declare a dividend. After consultation with Peter Welch CA, TT and Bar, it was respectfully pointed out to "Happy Heppy" that the Christmas Bash (in which he is a recidivist participant arriving early and leaving quite late) offers an occasion for the distribution of any excess from our Managed Funds.
This is achieved annually through a process of largesse which is fiducially (a word with which "Heppy" may have some resonance) sound. As it happens every year and there is no risk that there will not be a Christmas Bash, it must be akin to "interest rather than a dividend". This is a neat strategem - so elegant in its simplicity. In any case, there is no coupon and distribution is undetectable and certainly not assessable in the hands of the recipients or subject to FBT or Capital Gains Tax.
The Subscribers to the T2 Sunk Bonds are listed below.