[Meetings and Other Activities]

In the sunny afternoon of October 3, ACABS had a big party to celebrate the National Day of China and the traditional Chinese Moon festival, and to get all members and their families, relatives and friends together to catch up with one another. The party was held from mid day to late afternoon on Ruffey Lake Park in Doncaster (Melway P33, J10). There were approximately 150 people who attended the party.

Many people prepared the party for long time (see thanks from below) and many people came from long ways. Professor Yuntian Sun came back from Beijing and attended the party. He met with many old friends from 20 years ago when they were studying together in Melbourne. Prof Sun also brought back to people many exciting news from China including his great achievements in clinical pathology radiating from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences to almost all China provincial capitals and major cities. Being an Australian citizen, Prof Sun is among the first to hold a China “green card” to be able to work in China permanently without requiring any other entry visas. Also having come back shortly before the Oct 3 party from China was CSIRO Senior Principal Scientist Linfa Wang. Linfa and his wife ACABS member Dr Meng Yu drove from Geelong to attend the party. Linfa has been in and out of China so many times that he has to think to tell me the exact number just for this year. On top of many other projects, Linfa has been assisting Chinese government establish a highly safe and most secure viral study system as he told many the so dubbed P4 laboratories.

It seems that it could never stay away not to talk about work and careers in our common fields particularly when get together from all 4 to 8 directions. But, enjoying a variety of foods and beers was also electrifying at this huge party. ACABS members amazingly brought over 50 dishes for people to taste. So many varieties of Chinese cuisines, Western styles and seemingly the combinations were presented from those with the biomedical life science backgrounds! Busy still were the ACABS Recreation Committee members Dr Ji Yang, Dr DaKang Xu, Dr De-Yi Liu and a number of enthusiastic volunteers who were nonstop cooking the BBQ for all. The food tasting activities were apparently peaked with hails when the adjudicators from Recreation Committee (Dr Jian-Guo Zhang and Dr Binghui Wang) selected the winners of the first, second and third prizes of the food tasting. When Dr Binghui Wang called each name of the winners, clapping and laughing were so loud that the whole Ruffey Lake Park seemed to feel happy, lucky and fluky.

Congratulations to the first prize winners Xiaowen Xiao and Dexing Huang, the second prize winner Chunfang Zhang, and the third prize winner Dan Li for their great foods for the party! With the beautiful foods, the greenish park and the perfect weather of full sunshine, many members and all colorfully dressed children enjoyed enormously a variety of sporty activities on the park. Various types of balls flied to different directions in air or on grounds, running and chasing and tackling and getting scores. There are many other children and fun facilities that the park has on offer. It’s a wonderful place, wonderful time, for wonderful people, under wonderful organization by the ACABS Recreation Committee.

On behalf of ACABS, I would like to thank all members who have contributed and attended this successful party. In particular, I want to pay tribute to a number of people who played instrumental roles in organizing, preparing and carrying out many different functions of the party. I would like to thank Dr Ji Yang who led the whole Recreation Committee to have organized such a successful party. Yang Ji came to the Ruffey Lake Park at 9 am to prepare the site and his wife Xiao An helped enormously. Thank-you Yang Ji for your contributions! I would like to thank Dr Dakang Xu and his family for coming early to prepare the party site. I would like to thank Dr Deyi Liu and Deyi’s wife Mingli for their great helps in preparing the tables, and laying out and labeling the dishes for judging the first, second and third prizes. I would like to thank Dr Jian-Guo Zhang and Dr Binghui Wang who had tasted more than 50 dishes and made difficult decisions for the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd prizes. I would like to thank Yang Ji, Xu Dakang, Wang Binghui, Chen Chaoguang, Li Shan, and Jiang Fangxu for spending time to do the shopping for BBQ foods and drinks. I would like to thank those who helped with the BBQ, and we would like to thank all members and friends who have helped and your contributions and involvements are very much appreciated. Cheers,

By Jun-Ping Liu